Black Dog
by ArcticWind27
Summary: Two brothers return home after the end of a hundred year long civil war between the Terran Federation and the victorious Systems Alliance. They thought that they would go home to Shanxi to relax on leave, but Murphy's law is always right. A/U.
1. Homecoming

Chapter 1 Homecoming

A light snow fell slowly though the air leaving a light dusting on the desolate city of New Oxford, as Mason Line and his spotter Tyler Boyd observed the enemy lines across the square though their rifle scopes. The gray ashen tarp they hid beneath provided little protection from the biting cold.

"The hunting's no good today, eh Shuck?" Tyler remarked not taking his eye off his scope.

A terse grunt was the response from his partner. Mason was about to say something when he heard three raps on the doorway behind them, a prearranged signal for the runners.

"What is it soldier?" Mason asked the runner.

"Command has recalled all of the sniper teams and the colonel personally informed me to come and get you guys first."

"What the hell for?" Tyler asked looking over at Mason who was still watching the enemy lines.

"I don't know sir. I was only to recall the sniper teams to base."

"Alight, move on, Bravo and Charlie teams are in that building over there." Mason said his southern accent coming through in spades, gesturing towards the office building adjacent, to the apartment building they were in.

The runner scurried off down the hallway, his loud footsteps quickly receding into the distance. Tyler looked over at his partner and spoke up.

"Loud ain't he?"

"Probably eager to finish his task." Mason said as he crawled backwards from their hide, not willing to stand up for fear of enemy snipers.

Tyler quickly followed suit pulling back from the rubble they were using as rifle rests in front of the hole in the exterior wall. In the hallway the two quickly stowed their gear in their packs and made for the stairwell. They quickly descended down the stairs and made for a back window they hoped out of. Once outside Mason signaled for Tyler to sprint across the road for the friendly trenches. Tyler sprinted across the road, almost invisible in his gray parka and pants, and turned to provide cover for Mason as he ran across the street.

Once they were both safely in the trenches, they roadie ran the entire way to the command trench and nodded to the friendly troops they passed. When they entered the command bunker that was built into an old wine cellar, a few hundred yards behind the front lines, they were assaulted with the chatter of radios and their comrades. Something felt of to Mason, their fellow soldiers were joyous, a far cry from the solemn mood that loomed over the bunker when they left three days ago.

Mason lowered his black balaclava and hood, and exposed his black hair, as they entered the main room of the bunker, the low haze of cigarette smoke to escape into the other areas of the bunker. They were greeted by an unusual sight their commanding officer Colonel Bella, singing along with the troops with as broad smile plastered on his face, as one played an accordion. Now they knew something up, the Colonel usually was such a serious man.

As soon as he saw them he opened his arms wide, with a bottle of trench brewed alcohol in his hands, to give Mason and Tyler a hug. For a man a foot and a half shorter that either than them he was surprisingly strong. Backing away from the pair he extended the bottle of alcohol to the them. Looking at Tyler for a second Mason thought what the hell and took the bottle, drawling a swig from the bottle before passing it to Tyler.

"Sir is there any particular reason for the celebration?" Mason asked

"Come with me to my office my friends, I have something to show you." the Colonel said gleefully as he pulled them into his office. The Colonel moved behind his desk and shuffled the dispatches on his desk until he came to three stapled together and handed them to Mason. Mason couldn't believe what he saw on the first dispatch.

 **Attention**

 _All Hostilities with the_ _Terran_ _Federation will cease as of July 4, 2157. The war is over, and_ _the Alliance is victorious._

Mason handed the dispatch to Tyler who shook his head disbelievingly, ran his hand though his sandy brown hair.

"That's not all the good news, read the other two." the Colonel said pointing at the other two dispatches.

Once again Mason couldn't believe his eyes, Mason and Tyler had both had two months of leave effective immediately. Once again he showed the papers to his partner and Tyler looked at them questioningly.

"Two months leave, what for? Our leave isn't scheduled for at least another two weeks." Mason asked.

"I don't know, maybe the brass thought two of it's top snipers deserved a little R&R, anyway it doesn't matter. Now get going, you read them effective immediately!" the Colonel said the cheerful tone not leaving his voice.

Mason just nodded, still trying to comprehend the reality that had been just revealed to him. The Hundred years war was over. After a few moments Mason stood at attention and snapped a salute to the Colonel, Tyler also saluted. The Colonel saluted the two soldiers in front of him.

"It's been a pleasure serving with you Colonel." Mason said as he spun around to leave, the colonel just waved in return.

Taking a left turn as he left the Colonels office the pair of snipers headed to the bunk room deeper in the bunker. Once at their respective bunks, they began packing up their meager personal belongings. Mason was finished first, and slung his pack on his back, followed by his trusted W70 sniper rifle in his rifle bag. He picked up his AR-10M and cradled it in his arms, waiting by the door for Tyler to finish packing. When Tyler finished packing they walked down the hallway back to the command center and saluted Colonel Bella one last time before leaving the bunker. The Colonel saluted back as he watched them leave with a contemplative look on his face.

Back outside in the biting cold Mason pulled up his balaclava to protect his face. He turned to Tyler and spoke up.

"You think Oleg Petrovsky had something to do with our early leave?"

"You'll just have ask him at our friends and family barbecue." Tyler said shrugging.

They walked down the command trench farther towards the rear area where the supply shuttles were coming and going. A crew chief came out of one of the shuttles that had landed and swept his gaze over the landing zone. When he saw the pair of snipers he walked over and greeted him.

"You the boys I'm supposed to take up to the _Spirit of Shanxi_?"

Mason pulled out their orders and glanced over them before nodding in the affirmative. The crew chief nodded and motioned for them to follow him to the shuttle. As the trio entered the shuttle the door sealed behind them. Mason and Tyler took seats opposite of each other as the shuttle lifted off.

" _Spirit of Shanxi,_ that's Brittney's posting right?" Mason asked breaking the oppressive that had settled over them.

"Yeah it is."

"So how caught up are you two going to be once there's time?" the implication of what Mason was saying quite clear.

"We'll be having lot's of fun if that's what you mean." Tyler said laughing, flipping Mason the bird.

The mood was less oppressive as they joked around on the ride up. Once they docked with the _Spirit of Shanxi_ Mason left out of the shuttle.

"Thanks for the ride chief." Mason said as he passed the crew chief.

"You call, We deliver." He said as they left.

Mason and Tyler left the hanger bay and went to registrar to check in and confirm their orders. After their orders were confirmed they headed to the officers barracks, a large complex in the heart of the ship with all the commodities of home, which was needed to house all of the officers, because the _Spirit of Shanxi_ was one of the largest dreadnoughts in the Alliance navy.

Tyler whistled a happy tune as they walked down the crowded hallways towards the officers quarters. The pair drew quite a few stares from passing sailors and soldiers alike, since both of them had sniper rifles and packs slung on their backs and AR-10M's cradled in their arms. The pairs faces were still darkened with face paint and dressed in their gray parkas and pants.

 _Thankfully_ _no one recognized me as the infamous 'Black Shuck'._ Mason thought as he stepped through the door to the officers quarters. Being awarded the Hero of the Alliance medal was both a curse and a blessing in Mason's opinion, it commanded a lot of respect but it also brought gave rise to that name being slung around by the media.

Mason thew his gaze around the room scanning the faces and ranks of the people in the room and something felt off to him. This feeling of unease quickly dissipated when a familiar called out to them.

"Hey you bastards look like shit."

Mason turned to face the speaker, it was David Anderson their old CO and close friend.

"Well we just got pulled off the line so you'll have to pardon our appearance." Mason said punching Anderson in the arm playfully.

"Yeah, what he said. Is there a place to get some chow? I haven't has a hot meal in three days." Tyler asked eagerly.

"Well the chow line is over there" Anderson said pointing over his shoulder "But it looks like you need to get cleaned up. The showers are that way." Anderson pointed in the other direction as Tyler dashed off to the chow line.

"Thanks Anderson I think I'll hit the showers first, I'll catch up with you in a few."

Mason walked toward the showers at a leisurely pace and stowed his gear in one of the temporary lockers outside of the shower rooms. He walked into the shower room and stepped into the first empty shower room and undressed. He then turned the on the water so it was piping hot. Letting the hot water wash over his back he felt months of tension evaporate, the warm water the polar opposite of the desolate wasteland that was New Oxford.

He reflected on his six years of service, his five hundred or so confirmed kills was probably one of the highest confirmed counts in the Alliance. A feat that hadn't been recreated by a single sniper since the days of the second world war a little over 200 years ago.

He wondered if Tyler would reenlist when the last four years of their contact was up. They had enlisted together right out of high school, with two other friends. Brittney Wade and Chris Spears, and used the enlistment incentive of not being split up if you enlisted with a group. They did end up getting split up though Brittney became a pilot and Spears, Tyler, and Mason got spit up after two years in the Air-Cav, when Tyler and Mason got accepted into the N Corps. In the end he decided the other would probably wouldn't reenlist, they would probably want to settle down. That left him with the question 'What did he want?' and Mason didn't know, in all honesty he didn't expect to make it to the end of his contract. He had fully expected to die in the meat grinder that was the hundred years war that had claimed just over one billion lives.

After scrubbing the grit and grime of war off his body he stepped out of the shower stall a cloud of billowing steam followed him into the chilly locker room. Mason quickly dried off and got dressed in his cleanest pair of gray BDU pants and a black t-shirt.

He took the rest of his gear from the locker, he made his way out to the common area and found a secluded table on the balcony overlooking the rest of the room. Mason then quickly set about cleaning his weapons, he set his sidearm a 1911 on a the table, followed by his AR-10M and then his prized possession the W70 hunting rifle he used as a sniper rifle. Mason picked up the AR-10M and broke the rifle down into it's components, laying each piece in an orderly line on the table, and he ran a rag with solvent on it over each piece to remove the carbon build up.

The sweet smelling aroma of the solvent brought back memories of simpler time of cleaning firearms with his father and adoptive brother Tyler after a hunting trip, before the war took away their father and home from them. He cleaned the bore of the rifle before he lubricated and reassembled it. He then preformed a function test on the rifle and once he was satisfied it worked he placed it on the table and began the disassembly of his 1911.

Once he finished the cleaning and reassembly of his pistol, he racked the slide and pulled the trigger a few times watching the hammer fall. Mason studied the weapon in his hand, it was truly a work of art, the silver frame scuffed from years of use and the grips depicting St. Micheal. It was a very important family heirloom, one of his ancestors bought it back in 1997 and another had carried it into battle in 2040 at the start of the hundred years war. As had all the men in his family since the start of the war.

Placing the pistol the table he picked up the W70, it was probably the least military issue of all his gear, with it's twenty-four inch bull barrel, six to fourteen power scope and chambered in 6.5 creedmoor. Being in the N Corps had it's advantages, one of which was non-regulation weapons.

He flicked the switch on the rear of the receiver and pulling the bolt free, he cleaned it with solvent and then lubed it up. Mason then ran the bore snake though the rifle several times before locking the bolt back into place, he pulled the trigger and with a satisfying click he was sure all of his weapons were in working order.

Mason took a moment to admire his weapon, the W70 had a checkered fore stock so it was easier to grip and on the stock there was an engraving of a dog. The engraving was how he had earned his nick name of Black Shuck. A prisoner from a column of soldiers he had been harassing with sniper fire, saw his rifle and related the tale of Black Shuck. When the media caught wind of the engagement and the prisoners tale, they ran with it and he became a legend.

He broke his gaze from the rifle and stared over the crowd of people below him. As he stared out over the crowd his earlier feeling of unease came back. He recognized many of the faces as guys from his class of N graduates. Something was up, half of the N corp seemed to be down there, along with a lot of officers from the Air-Cav.

"Air-Cav, I wonder if that means Spears is going to be here?" Mason mused to himself as he placed his rifles in his rifle case. He continued to watch the soldiers below him and as if on queue his question was answer by a voice calling to someone at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey guys I found him up here."

Mason turned his head towards the voice and saw his friend Chris Spears, with Tyler and Brittney Wade following, and Anderson bringing up the rear of the group.

"Cigarette?" Spears asked holding out a crumpled pack to Mason

Mason took one and Spears lit it with his zippo. Mason took a long drag of his cigarette as the group got settled around the table. Tyler and Brittney sat on the bench seat across the table from mason, sitting a little to close to each other, everyone there knew about their relationship except Anderson and the Military doesn't take to kindly to fraternization among officers. Spears sat next to Mason and Anderson pulled up a chair at the head of the of the table. Spears passed the pack of cigarettes around the table, only Brittney refused one. Mason turned to look back out over the common area and Spears broke the silence that had settled among the group.

"So what's up Mason? There's at least one-hundred and fifty spec-ops guys down there, and my entire Air-Cav unit got pulled from the line too."

"I don't know Spears, Tyler and I just got pulled too, and told we got two months leave. We're just heading to Shanxi." Mason said shrugging his shoulders. This revelation raised the eyebrows of their three compatriots, their gaze lingered on him and Tyler.

"What?" Mason asked with an almost belligerent tone.

"Well we're going Shanxi too but we're going to be stationed there with limited leave passes." Spear stated as he snubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray. "But first my Air-Cav unit got a week long stop at Arcturus station for a refit. Before being attached the N corp where your friend Anderson is going to be my CO."

"Yeah us too." Anderson said though a draw of his cigarette

"Well my orders tell me to report straight to the airbase outside of the capital. Mind if I hitch a ride with you guys to Shanxi?" Brittney added

"No Problem we're heading their straight from Arcturus anyways." Tyler said also snubbing his cigarette out. Mason nodded in agreement as he finished his cigarette and placed the smoldering remains in the ash try. Brittney stared at him long and hard, she noticed his tense body language.

"What's up Mason?" she drawled in her southern accent.

"What do you mean?" Mason asked

"Somethings wrong you look really tense."

"I don't know something feels off about all this." He said looking at all of the faces around the table.

"What do you mean Mason?" Anderson asked with a thoughtful look on his face, trying to understand what Mason meant.

"Well all of us being pulled from the line at the same time and being sent to the same planet is odd to say the least... and the fact that one-hundred and fifty members of the N corps being station at the same place is unheard of. Until no the biggest group I've heard of was about thirty troops during a planetary invasion. Also the fact that an entire Air-Cav unit being attached to the N units is also odd." Mason said relating his observations.

"You're just being paranoid, my order tell me we're moving out Shanxi for training exercises." Anderson chuckled.

"Yeah my orders are the same." Spears said.

"Mine too." Brittney added.

"Well our orders say that Tyler and I Get two months of straight R&R. Maybe I'm just being Paranoid. Now that the wars over I guess a lot of things are going to change. Hell I bet y'all are going out training to kick ET's ass, now that there aren't any Federation troops to kill now." Mason replied, those gathered at the table laughing at his joke.

A waiter came over and set a tray of five mugs of beers on the table.

"We didn't order any beers." Anderson said looking up at the boy

"It's complements of the man over there." The waiter said pointing at another table.

The waiter walked away as the five turned to see who he pointed at. It was Sergeant Major Eckert. The two ex Air-Cav and the current Air-Cav members of the group snapped a crisp salute, which the Sergeant Major returned. The five then turned around to enjoy their beers.

"A friend of yours?" asked Anderson as he brought the mug up for a drink.

"Yeah he ran us though Air-Cav boot camp on sidewinder." Tyler explained.

Anderson nodded in response, the mood in the group became jovial as they drank their beers. They laughed and caught up with each other as the ate chips and salsa. Until they were interrupted by an announcement over the intercom.

" _Now docking with Arcturus Station, all troops prepare to disembark."_

The group exchanged glances among each other as they finished the last of their second beer. Spears jumped up and left to organize his platoon and nodded his goodbye, Mason responded with a two finger salute from their days as Cub Scouts. Tyler and Brittney got up next, Tyler grabbed his gear as he and Brittney headed for the stairs. Mason stood up, grabbed his kit and moved to make his way to the stairs, when Anderson grabbed his arm.

"Hey Mason I have to ask you a question."

"What is it?" Mason asked.

"Is there something going on between them?" Anderson asked pointing over at Tyler and Brittney. "You know the regulations Mason. If they get caught they could get busted down a rank or worse."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Mason said with a shrug and a smile.

"I read you five by five, partner." Anderson said understanding Mason's sarcasm, having had friends cover for him when he dated a colleague, Kahlee Sanders.

They then headed over to where Tyler and Britney were waiting for them by the stairs. The three soldiers and one Pilot slowly made their way to the disembarkment station, knowing the line to get of the ship would be a long. Mason put on his black beret with the N3 insignia displayed prominently on the front, the other two soldiers noticing Mason's actions followed suit, except Anderson's beret had the N5 insignia on the front.

"What did you do that for?" Brittney asked as she watched them fix the berets on their heads. "I thought you guys hated all the attention these berets bring you guys, especially you Mason, since the three of you have been awarded _Hero of the Alliance_ medals among other high awards."

"I do hate the attention it brings, it goes against everything I know as a sniper to display my rank, but right now it makes disembarking easier. Especially since Anderson is here, when those desk jockeys see an N5 they'll take his word as the word of god and let us walk right off the ship and onto the Arcturus. I guess Tyler and I could get away with it too but with a little more hassle." Mason said as he shrugged his shoulders.

"So you're abusing your rank?"

"No Brittney we're not abusing our rank, let's just call it perks of the rank, and being famous. So by extension have those perks too." Tyler said giving Brittney the rise she wanted from her teasing.

"She's just pulling your leg son." Anderson chuckled, while Tyler looked away embarrassed he let his pride get the better of him.

The group arrived at the disembarkment center and spied a kiosk whose line had dwindled down to one man at the front. After a short wait the three N soldiers moved up followed by Brittney, and the young clerks eyes went wide as he saw the ranks of the four soldiers in front of him.

"What c-can I do for you s-sirs?" the young man stammered. Anderson moved up and began speaking.

"You can began by checking us in, and my friends over their need to know when the next flight to Shanxi leaves."

The group handed their ID's to the clerk and Mason smiled at Anderson, grateful for his help. The young clerk furiously typed away on his computer for an answer to Anderson's query.

"Uh it looks like there is a corvette leaving in about five minutes. Would you like me to hold them for an additional five minutes to give you time to reach them.?"

"That would be great son, give them my authorization." Anderson said tapping his military ID.

"The corvette will hold for the next ten minutes, that should give you enough time to reach them on dock 7C." the clerk said handing them back their ID's and new orders.

Anderson saluted the clerk and turned to head deeper into the station towards the docking ring that ran around the station with the trio of friends in tow. They stopped when they reached the ring, right outside of the terminal they were just in. Anderson faced the group and extended his hand, shaking each of theirs in turn.

"Well friends it looks like we part this is where we part ways." Anderson's said.

"It was good seeing you Anderson." Mason said

Anderson crisply snapped a salute, which the others quickly returned, and with that Anderson left and disappeared to find his company of spec-ops.

"So where's this corvette supposed to be?" Brittney asked

Mason checked their new orders and pointed to their left.

"That way on dock 7C. Its only a couple of terminals over we'll be there in no time."

"Sounds good." Tyler said as they began walking towards the terminal that contained dock 7C

Before they made it to far a voice called out to them.

"Hey Mason wait up."

Mason looked over his shoulder to see Spears sprinting towards them.

"Hey Mason I need you to do me a favor." Spears blurted out as soon as he stood in front of them. Handing a letter to Mason. "I need you to deliver that letter to Maria for me."

"Yeah no problem Spears."

"Thanks Mason." Spears said before he darted off as quickly as he appeared.

"So what's that?" Tyler asked.

"It's just a letter spears wanted me to deliver to Maria. Come on let's go, I don't want to spend the night here, the hotel prices are ridiculous." Mason said tucking the envelope into his pocket.

Mason followed Tyler and Brittney as they made their way to terminal seven. Swiping their ID's on a terminal, they were checked out of the station. They went to the third dock and were greeted by a gruff looking man.

"You the guys I'm supposed to take to Shanxi?"

"Yes sir." Mason said saluting the captain.

"Well I'm Captain Jones, if y'all need anything don't hesitate to ask. It's the least I can do for our heroes. We'll be at Shanxi in about six hours, so lets get underway."

Mason gulped at the mention of being heroes. He didn't think they were heroes, all of his kills were just part of his job as a sniper, saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. He hated the notoriety that his successes had brought him, he also knew that Tyler hated the fame that came along with his four hundred or so kills. It was just luck that they had done so well over the last four years. They had gotten lucky and had been stationed in _New Oxford,_ the perfect snipers hunting ground, mostly static trench warfare in a bombed out city just like Stalingrad of old. Brittney on the other hand was sitting at a very respectable hundred and twenty aerial victories, but the key difference was that she flourished in the fame. She was a very charismatic and photogenic person. The trio stepped onto the ship and followed the captain to the bridge.

"Captain Jones there is something you can do for us, are there any open bunks for us to crash in?" Mason asked

"Bunk room four is empty, y'all can use that while we're en route." Captain Jones said as he pointed deeper into the ship.

"Thank you sir."

Mason led the group down the hall and found bunk room four, past the cramped mess hall and opened the door. The room was very small, with three bunks on the other walls. Mason placed his rifle bag, and pack in the corner and pulled a book from his bag. Crawling into the bunk on the right side of the room, Mason pulled the curtain shut on the open side of the bunk to give Tyler and Brittney some privacy, or at least as much privacy that can be afforded on a star ship.

Mason was pulled up his book, _With the Old Breed_ , opening to the page he had left off on. He began to read, but soon he felt sleep take over him, being up for the past twenty-one hours was beginning to take it's toll. Mason's head slumped forward as he fell asleep, his book falling on his lap.

* * *

"Hey bro wake up, the captain has arranged for a shuttle to take us down to the Capital spaceport.

Mason opened his eyes, blinked to clear his vision, and saw Tyler and Brittney standing over him. He swung his leg out onto the deck and stretched out.

"I hear you Tyler let's go."

Mason stood up and began collecting his gear, once he was satisfied he had everything, he left the room towards the hanger with the others in tow. In the hanger there was a single shuttle, whose pilot waved them over as he entered the shuttles cockpit. Mason took a seat opposite of Brittney and Tyler, the two of them talking about their plans for when Brittney gets leave and soon he felt the familiar sensation of a shuttle entering atmosphere.

In a few minutes the shuttle landed at the spaceport for the capital of Shanxi, unoriginally named Capital. The trio left the shuttle and entered the terminal in a hurry as it was raining outside.

"Tyler we need to head to long term parking and maintenance, to pick up my truck." Mason said as they walked down the main hallway of the spaceport.

Tyler nodded as he and Brittney continued their conversation from the shuttle. At the kiosk for long term parking Mason got his keys from the attendant, and they headed onto the lot to find his truck. They found his pickup truck in the corner under one of the street lamps. It was a beautiful one ton pickup with all of the bells and whistles, bully bar and winch mounted to the front, with an eight foot bed and crew cab.

Mason unlocked the truck and opened the back door of the cab and placed his gear on the floor and back bench seat. Tyler followed suit and so did Brittney as she climbed in after Tyler placed his bags inside. Closing the door after Brittney, Tyler grabbed Masons arm to have a word with him in private.

"Hey Mason you know since we have two months leave, you could find something good."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Mason asked staring at him confused.

"Think about it Mason, if you can't figure it out I'll tell you later." Tyler said as he climbed into the passenger seat of the truck.

Mason stood there for a few seconds, before he went around the front of the truck and climbed into the divers seat. He was confused as hell, his brother was never this cryptic. Mason settled into the seat he depressed the clutch and put the key in the ignition. He was about to start the truck, when he noticed Tyler and Brittney snickering at him.

"So what, are you in on this cryptic message too?" Mason asked glaring at Brittney through the rear view mirror.

Brittney nodded yes, to his question, which brought another bout of laughter from them. Mason realized he wasn't going to get a straight answer from them, so he turned the truck on sending billows of black smoke into the night air from the stacks behind the cab.

Mason shifted into second gear as he left the lot and quickly worked up his way through the gears, as he pulled onto the outer belt around the Capital. They had to go to the airbase to drop Brittney off before head off home to Deercreek. Mason felt uncomfortable in the silence that had settled in the truck, the others were on their phones. Most likely texting each other about whatever was so funny to them, if their constant snickering was anything to go by. He hit the power button on the radio and the twangy country sounds of Hank Williams Sr. filled the truck and blocked out the snickering.

It was nearing midnight as they pulled up to the main gate of the airbase, 14 o'clock am. Mason stopped the truck next to the guard house, a young corporal walked out and she stepped up on the running board or the truck.

"Identification please." she asked politely

Mason handed her all three of their ID's, as soon as she saw the N3 mark or two of the ID's, she handed them back and saluted.

"Have a nice night sir." she said as the waved them through the gate.

"You two corporal." Mason said as he pulled through the gate.

Mason worked his way through the residential section of the airbase to the officers barracks located next to the airfield and the pilots planes in hardened aircraft shelters. He parked in front of the barracks and turned ignition off, cutting the low rumble of the diesel engine.

"Well thanks for the ride boys. And I guess I'll be seeing you guys in, when I get my leave." Brittney said as the opened her door.

"Well at least, let me help you get your bags to your room." Tyler offered as he got out of the truck.

"What do you mean Tyler? All I have is one duffel..." she cut herself off realizing what his intended meaning was and looked at Mason to ask. "You wouldn't mind if Tyler helped me with my bags, would you?"

Mason looked at his watch, 14:10 in the morning, he then nodded at the pair that looked at him through the open passenger door.

"Go ahead, first light is in seven and a half hours, I want to leave around the so we can make it to Deercreek at a reasonable time."

He watched as the two ran off to the barracks, to pick up their relationship right were the had left it ten months ago right before they shipped out. Mason opened his door and stepped down from the cab and sauntered towards the officers barracks locking his truck with the key fob.

The main hallway was lined with dorms and emptied out into a rec-room in the middle of the building. Passing a room labeled _Wade B._ , he heard the shuffle of fabric and a low voice muffled through the door.

"They really didn't waste any time gettin' to it." Mason muttered to himself as he entered the rec-room. He walked to the bar and grabbed the hardest drink they had. A ginger ale.

"Man the fly boy have it hard, we had moonshine readily available to us in _New Oxford_." Mason said to the wall as he flopped down on the couch and turned on the TV.

He turned the channel to a news station. All of the coverage was of drunken fools in downtown's all across the Alliance celebrating the end of the Hundred Years War.

"Here's to the end of the war." Mason thought as he took a large swig of his drink.

Mason wasn't excited about the end of the war like most people. He was looking ahead at the big picture, and didn't like to what he saw. He didn't know what was going to happen and that scared him. The most likely thing that was going to happen was him and other N troopers being assigned to counter insurgency teams to hunt down any insurgents on the old Federation worlds. Counter insurgency operation were messy, images of the operations on Lancer VII popped into his mind.

"Goddammit, off to be a fucking glorified policeman and to have civilians take potshots at me." he growled at the TV.

Mason flipped through the channels and found an old animated sitcom on, there was no point in putting himself in a worse mood. He was about the fall asleep when he heard someone address him.

"Mind turning that down son? I just got in and I want to hit the sack."

Mason looked of the back of the couch and saw a tall black man standing in the door looking into the rec room.

"No problem sir." Mason said as he turned the TV down.

The man walked away after he thanked Mason. Mason rolled over to face the TV and pulled his BDU jacket up under his chin, just like one would do with a blanket and soon drifted to sleep.

* * *

Mason was awoken by sunlight coming in through the windows from the morning sun in the west. He sat up and stretched, he felt sore from sleeping on the couch. He looked didn't see Tyler anywhere, he stood and went to hammer on Brittney's door with his fist.

"Hey you fuckers it's, seven in the morning, time for us to go Tyler."

"Not so loud Mason, I'm hungover as fuck." Tyler said answering the door in his boxers.

"Put your goddamn clothes on Tyler I'll be waiting for you by the truck, we need to go before anyone else sees us here." Mason sighed, leaving the barracks with jacket in hand.

About fifteen minutes later, Tyler and Brittney left the barracks, who had obviously already said their goodbyes, walked over to Mason who was leaning against the side of his truck.

"Well bye guys, I'll be seeing you in a couple of weeks. You mind picking me up then?" Brittney said giving each of them a hug and a peck on the cheek. "Oh and say hi to my sister for me."

"Sure we can come and get you no problem and we'll say hi to your sister for you" Mason replied as he climbed into the pickup tuck.

Tyler and Brittney hugged again, as soon as Tyler was in the truck, Mason pulled out of the parking lot. As they were leaving the base he noticed something odd, a bunch of fully armed F-26 Super Tomcats were being wheeled into their bunkers along the side of the runway, with what looked like anti-ship missiles sitting on the supply trucks next to them.

"Must be for the squadrons training, but those anti-ship missiles seemed out of place." Mason thought as they left the base.

Taking the outer belt around the capital, Mason took the off ramp to Interstate One south, and gunned the engine, working through the gears until he was cruising at ninety miles per hour. Beginning the fourteen-ish hour journey, across 1300 miles, to Deercreek from the Capital.

"Hey Tyler what did mean last night, when you said I could find something good this leave?" Mason asked.

"You really don't any idea about what I was talking about do you?" Tyler asked looking at him incredulously.

"No I don't" he replied after a thoughtful pause.

"Brittney's younger sister really likes with you bro. You two have been practically dating for the last two years, might as well make it official."

"Me and Samantha dating? I mean I've thought about it, but the time never felt right. Besides where did you get such an idea."

"How about when we get home from our deployment she practically lives in our house, or movie nights when she makes it a point to sit with you and the and by the end of the night shes snuggled up next to you. Maybe even all the letters you write to each other during our deployments. My real favorite reason, is when she stays at our house she insists on sleeping with you in your room. I guess all of your attentiveness going into being a top sniper really makes you blind to social situations. And if now isn't the time I don't know when is, the wars over and if you really want to, you could probably get that posting on the Alliance Navy's Competitive shooting team. They'd let you bring her with you, a lot the shooters significant others travel with the team. I'm sure that they would love to have you on the long distance team.

Just a heads up Mason, Sammy is going to ask you out this leave. She got tired of waiting for you to make a move, so give her a chance. You know you like her and at least you have a love for hunting and bad horror movies in common. Now if you excuse me I have a hangover to sleep through, wake me up when get to Melbourne, I'll drive the rest of the way from their." Tyler sighed as he finished speaking

Tyler settled into the passenger seat and leaned his head against the window. Mason turned the radio on and turned down the volume as not to disturb Tyler. He turned it to the classic rock station, they were playing _70 super hits of the 70's_ and _Stuck in the Middle With You_ came on. Mason smiled and let his mind wander back back to those high school summers and those summer flings, a simpler time.

Minutes turned to hours and the miles quickly went by as Mason reminisced on the old the old times. In no time at all the small town of Melbourne came into view, laying halfway between Deercreek and the Capital. All that was at Melbourne was a few gas stations, truck stops, hotels, an assortment of restaurants, and a small residential area. The folk here made their living off the trucking business passing through, road trains going north hauling grain and other foods and road trains heading south with good to be delivered to the outlying towns. Mason took the off ramp and pulled into a gas station and reached over and woke Tyler up.

"Hey we're in Melbourne, go get some food from inside, honey mustard chicken if they got it." Mason said as he got out of the truck and began pumping diesel into the tank.

Tyler stretched out, reached into the glove box and pulled out a hundred dollar bill before heading inside to get some food. While Tyler was inside Mason sent a text to their little brother Jason that they would be back in town later that evening. He finished pumping the diesel and paid for it as Tyler walked out with a paper bag in hand.

"We good to go Mason?" Tyler asked as he tossed the paper bag to Mason.

"Yup, we're good." Mason said as he climbed into the passenger seat and began eating his sandwich as Tyler got into the drivers seat for the final leg home. Mason handed Tyler his sandwich after they had reached cursing speed, Mason began speaking in between bites.

"You know I've thought about it and I think you are right, I'll give Sammy a chance, cause if what you said is true and she really does like me, I think things could work out between us. Besides I enjoy her company."

"We know you'd come around to the idea." Tyler said.

"Who is this we?"

"Brittney and I have know about her crush on you for some time now, and I just learned she was planning to ask you out yesterday from Brittney."

"Well thanks for the heads up, I don't know how I would have reacted to being blindsided by that question. I probably would have made an ass of myself and hurt her feelings."

"Well that's what bros are for, we got to watch each other backs and help out where we can. You've covered for Brittney and I more times than I can count, this was the least I could do. Beside you need to relax you've spent to much of your time focusing on the war, it's over now and we have time to live our lives."

"You know that's not true we'll probably be assigned to counter insurgency units, we might get longer periods of leave maybe six months but we'll still probably get deployed." Mason said.

"Yeah I know but a man can dream cant he."

"Even bigger problem is that we still have four years left of our ten year contract. But I bet both of us could get on the Navy's rifle team. They would probably love to have two of the Alliance's biggest poster boys on the team." Mason said

The two of them continued to talk about this and that and anything that really came to mind. Soon the exit that led to the two lane road that ran the last thirty miles to Deercreek came up.

Twenty miles from Deercreek, Tyler pulled onto a dirt track that winded through the tall pine trees, to a one story house. The three of them had built it as their own personal paradise on twenty five square miles of land, the three them being Mason, Tyler, and Spears. The house sat in a clearing with a garage attached, and a barn sat under the cover of the pine trees near the edge of the clearing. Towards the back of the property was a fourteen hundred yard shooting range.

Tyler pulled the pickup in front of the house, Mason got out and went up to the front porch and pulled up a small plank of wood retrieving the house keys from underneath the deck. He walked inside after unlocking the door, he went to his room immediately adjacent to the living room. Mason undressed and found a clean pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. He topped off his outfit with his leather jacket and a cowboys hat, and shoved the contents of his BDU pockets into his inside jacket pockets, he then slide his .45 into his waistband holster.

In the living room Mason saw that Tyler had also shed from his BDUs and changed into civilian clothes.

"Mason you hungry?" Tyler asked tossing Mason the truck keys.

"Hell yeah I haven't had anything since one pm." he replied.

They left the house and got into the truck. The ride to Deercreek passed in silence as they collected their own thoughts. On top of the last hill before entering the town, they stopped and looked on the town, it's lights and the mountains beyond.

They were home, looking over at Tyler who nodded, Mason continued about a third of the way down the hill before he pulled into the parking lot of O'Donovans' pub and grill. They left the truck and crossed the parking lot to the stairs that led up to the restaurant farther up the hill which was partially built on stilts. Walking into the pub, Mason kept his gaze low and turned his head down so that the brim of his hat obscured his face a little. Heading down the hallway lined with booths, that were occupied by the old men of the local militia, who recognized them but only nodded or raised their beers in silent greetings.

The old men knew they were their for a drink, or some food, not to be praised. The old men also knew how hard it was to come home after your tour had ended as they were all veterans of the hundred years war. Mason nodded in return to their silent greetings, before he emerged into the main dinning room and turning and walking up to the bar.

"Hey Donny two beers and two shots of whiskey." Mason said as he leaned on the bar speaking to the back of the bartender.

"Do my ears deceive me or are my favorite two bastards back in town." Said John O'Donovan as he placed the order in front of Mason and Tyler. "You two sneaking back into town again? Your aunt's going to be pissed that you didn't let her know you were going to be back in town."

"You know us to well Donny, it was a long drive here and I just want to get something to drink and some food." Mason said as he took his shot.

"It's good to see you boys back" Donny said nodding before he moved to take car of another patron.

"So how is Sammy?" Tyler asked.

"She just finished her second year at the community college and got a business degree." Mason said.

Mason and Tyler continued to talk quietly amongst themselves, until they heard an unmistakable laugh. They turned around on their bar stools and saw Brittney's younger sister Samantha sitting with her friends. Maria Petrovsky, Spears girlfriend, was also there with some of her friends. It was a large group of about twelve girls, all chatting and giggling about something. Mason thought that Samantha looked good in her gray hoodie, pleated plaid skirt, thigh high socks and her black scene girl hair.

"I think we should go and say hi." Mason said

"I agree." Tyler said as the pair walked over to the table.

"Hey ladies, mind if we join you?" Mason asked

The girls looked over them and Maria's eyes went wide as she flicked her blonde hair out of the way. Samantha's bright green eye, the left one not obscured by her bangs, lit up.

"Mason! Tyler!" they both exclaimed almost simultaneously as they jumped up and gave each a hug.

Samantha's hug with Mason lingered a bit, she left her hand on his back as she turned back to face the table. Mason noticed this and put his arm around her waist and pulled her in close to his side. This action didn't go unnoticed by the other girls and they started laughing amongst themselves, causing Samantha's face to flush red with embarrassment, but she wrapped her right arm around Mason's waist and pulled herself closer.

"Of course we wouldn't mind if you joined us. Move over ladies give them some room to sit." Maria said as the girls scrunched over in the all ready cramped booth. Mason and Tyler sat down on the end of the booth opposite of each other, next to Samantha and Maria respectively. Once they were settled, they were immediately bombarded with questions.

"So what do you think of the war being over?" one of the girls asked, all of them leaning in to hear the two soldiers answers.

"I'm Happy as hell that my last four years are going to easy as hell. Probably only have to run a couple of ops a year." Tyler replied first, and everyone's gazed shifted to Mason as he sighed.

"To be honest, I would be lying if I didn't say I was scared, because truth be told I am scared because I don't know what the future holds. Running counter insurgency ops on the old Federation worlds doesn't seem like to much fun to me, so I think I'll take up your grandfathers standing offer on the Alliance Navy's competitive shooting team, Maria. Besides if I take the spot on the shooting team I can bring someone with me." Mason said as he nudging Samantha with his elbow, she hugged his arm as if saying yes to his invitation.

"We'll have to talk to my grandfather about that. I think he'll be pleased you changed your mind." Maria said.

"What's going on out on the football field?" Mason asked as he pointed out the floor to ceiling windows on the south side of the building.

"Oh there's a celebratory football match going on between our high school, the team from New Poland, I think the Melbourne team and the team from South Beach. There's lots of people tailgating and the fairgrounds is filled with campers and food stalls. All the hotels in town are booked. I also think they are having fireworks at midnight." Samantha said still hugging onto Mason's arm.

"Hmm you think Uncle's down there?" Mason asked Tyler.

"Yeah probably, he always like watching football. I never liked watching it though, but I do like playing it though.

"Here's to that brother." Mason said toasting Tyler

The group continued chatting and the conversation carried on for several hours, with lots of teasing Samantha for her blatant attachment to Mason. Mason's phone went off and he checked it, it was a text from his younger brother.

" _Hey bro you in town yet?"_

" _Yeah, Tyler and I got here a few hours ago."_

" _Um I need your help. My ride to the party is passed out drunk, my girlfriend is drunk and I'm to tipsy to get us home. Can you come pick me up?"_

" _Yeah bro. Where you at?"_

" _3500 CR2, out on the east side of town."_

" _OK bro, Tyler and I will be there in a few minutes."_

Mason looked up and saw that Samantha had been reading his phone as he tried to hide it under the table, he made eye contact with her before he spoke up.

"It's been nice chatting with you ladies but Tyler and I need to go pick our little brother up."

"Is Sasha with him?" Maria asked a hint of concern in her voice. Mason nodded and got out of the booth. Tyler followed and so did Samantha and Maria.

"Mind if we come with you?" Maria asked gesturing to herself and Samantha.

"No I don't mind at all." Mason said "Hey Donny how much do we owe you for the beers?"

"Those were on the house, it's just nice to see you boys back in one piece." the kind old barkeep said.

Mason nodded his thanks and the large group said their goodbyes. They left the pub and the four friends walked down to Mason's truck. Mason and Samantha got into the front and Tyler and Maria got in the back. Mason left the parking lot and began heading towards the east side of town where his brother was.

"Well what did they do this time?" Maria asked

"They went to a party and your sister is wasted and my brother was coherent, but he isn't fit to get both of them home." Mason replied looking at her in the rear view mirror.

Maria sighed it was another time the older siblings had to take care of the younger ones. Mason reached up to the dash and turned on the police scanner, he had a feeling that the party didn't go unnoticed. The local authorities really cracked down on underage drinking at parties held by students. The scanner crackled to life and Mason's suspicions were confirmed, someone had called the party in and the police were going to send a few squad cars over to pick the party goers up. It was a race against time now, Tyler passed out bandannas to be used as makeshift face masks. Mason had Samantha tie his around his neck.

The rest of the trip passed in silence, at CR2 Mason turned east and headed into the neighborhood that 3500 was located in with his head lights off, and stopped on the side of the road a few houses down from 3500. He scanned the street with his gray eyes for any sign of police presence, not seeing any he turned to the occupants of the truck and began speaking.

"OK we do this quick, in and out no bullshit. I'm going to park the truck in front of the house on the curb. When we find the we'll put both of them in the back with Maria, and Tyler Sammy and I will ride up front. Got it?"

Everyone nodded.

"OK everyone masked up." Mason said.

Mason put the truck in drive and parked it in front of the house. Hoping out of the truck the group walked up to the door of house, and Mason tried the door knob and found it was unlocked, he walked inside followed by the others. They fanned out the searched the house room by room looking for Jason and Sasha as they stepped over passed out high school students. They found Sasha leaning on the toilet which was covered in her vomit and Jason was passed out next to her.

"Alright M and S go open the truck doors, T you get Sasha and I'll get Jason." Mason said using everyone's first initial.

Picking up Jason, Mason followed Tyler out of the house and the door behind him, he used his sleeve to try to smear their finger prints off the door knob. Tyler and Mason loaded James and Sasha into the back of the crew cab and Maria got in after them. Mason climbed into the front thought the passenger door followed by Samantha and Tyler. Once everyone was in the truck, Mason slammed the gearshift into first gear and sped off heading east further out of town, painfully aware his hand brushed against Samantha's thighs every time he shifted gears. Though she didn't seem to notice.

Mason planned to take the narrow back roads, he took the first back road that headed in a northerly direction, something caught his eye in the valley below him off to his left. The flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers.

"Looks like we cut it pretty close, eh guys?" Mason asked as he stopped the truck. Everyone else mumbled something of an agreement as the adrenaline of breaking the law wore off.

"The things we do for family." Mason said as they sat on the hillside watching the scene below them unfold.

Reaching into his jacket to get his flask, he felt a paper envelope, he pulled it out he saw it was the letter that Spears wanted him to give to Maria.

"Hey Maria, Spears wanted me to give you this letter." Mason said handing her the letter.

"Anyone want a drink?" Mason asked after he took a swig.

Everyone who was conscious took Mason up on his offer, Samantha went last and when she swallowed the alcohol, she went into a violent coughing fit.

"What the hell is that shit?" she asked though ragged breaths.

"Well that is at lest 130 proof trench brewed corn whiskey straight from New Oxford." Mason said smiling at her.

"You know your an asshole sometimes Mason, you know that?" she said

"I know, it comes and goes." he said as he started the truck and began heading home along the back roads.

Sammy began to fidget and turned the radio on, and _Sitting on the dock of the bay_ began playing over the speakers. Samantha laid her head on mason's shoulder for the rest of the ride to his house.

After half and hour of driving along winding roads though the back country of corn and wheat fields, they arrived at Mason and Tyler's house. Mason pulled the truck up to the front porch and got out after he the truck off. Inside he opened the futon out in the living room. Tyler came in behind them and place a passed out Jason on the futon, Samantha and Maria brought in Sasha and laid both her and Jason on their sides so if they threw up again they wouldn't don't die. Mason and Tyler went back outside and grabbed their rifle bags and packs and brought them into the living room where everyone was standing.

"Um Maria you can use Spears' room, you know where it is. Sam your stuff is still in the guest bathroom and you can sleep in my room." Mason said as he walked to his room.

Mason sat his stuff by the door of his room, and stepped into his own bathroom, one of four in the house, and took a shower. Mason threw on a gray t-shirt and boxers after his shower, and turned on his TV. With the volume turned down low. Standing in the middle of the room watching a stand up comedian he heard a voice speak to him from behind.

"Mind if I come in?" Samantha asked as she stood in his doorway in a black tank top and track shorts.

Her modest bust was accentuated by the form fitting tank top and her legs were exposed by he blue track shorts. Her black hair contrasting her pale white skin and green eyes. She looked beautiful in the blue moonlight coming in through the window. Mason flicked his eyes over her petite form and smiled.

"Sure come in, I was about to go to sleep anyway." He said turning off the TV.

Samantha walked in and climbed into the bed, Mason got in after her. He laid on his back with his hands behind his head and tried to go to sleep, but he felt Samantha's eyes boring into the side of his head. He turned his head to face Samantha and saw her staring intently at him.

"Penny for your thought's?" he asked her

Samantha's emerald eyes continued to stare at him for a few seconds before she sighed and scooted over to him, laying her head on his chest.

"Are you really scared now that the war is over?" she asked him.

"I'm scared because I don't know what will happen to me in the future, I'm stuck in some sort of weird limbo. I just hope to god that Admiral Petrovsky will pull though for me and get me that spot on the Competitive Shooting team." he replied stroking her still damp hair.

"He will pull through for you and when he does, I'd love to travel with you and the team." she said looking up at him.

Mason grunted in approval. Samantha shifted her position so she could better study his face. She stroked his face and neck with her slender fingers, being unusually intimate.

"You didn't used to be this pale." she said commenting on his pale white skin.

"You can thank the months in the perpetually overcast city of New Oxford for that." he said.

Samantha rolled over to her side facing away from Mason, he to followed suit and cuddled with her. She snuggled into his arms and slowly drifted off to sleep.

"Good night." she whispered before falling asleep.

"Night" Mason whispered back before he fell into the most peaceful sleep he had in years.

* * *

 _Codex_

AR-10M

The standard issue battle rifle of the Systems Alliance, a modernized version of Eugene Stoners AR10 developed in 1956. Capable of fully automatic fire, it is fed by a standard thirty round magazine. Fires the 7.62x51 NATO round.

1911

The personal side arms of Mason Dixon Line. Not much is changed about it except the three dot sight.

W70 Hunting rifle

A hunting rifle that Mason found in a gun store in his area of operations during his first deployment as a N2 sniper. He replaced his standard issue sniper rifle with the W70 as it was more accurate that his standard issue sniper.

Spirit of Shanxi

An Olympian class dreadnought, over 10km in length, equipped with the planet cracker main armament developed from an alien relic dubbed the Klendagon gun.

F26 Super Tomcat

The spiritual successor to the F14 Tomcat, it's a single seat Space/Air superiority fight capable of traversing from space to ground and vice versa. Armed with a 30mm gatling gun and hard points on the wings to attach various weapons or equipment. The F26 is the backbone of Alliance Air Corps.

 **Disclaimer I don't own anything except the OC's.**


	2. It happened while

Chapter 2 It happened while...

Brittney was awoken by the distinctive warbling tone of the bases siren. She instantly sat up in her bed and ran out the door towards the basement of the barracks where the pilots locker room was located. Running into the room she quickly donned her g-suit and took her distinctive black helmet off the top shelf of her locker and ran back into the hallway where a tall black man was waiting for her.

"Hey Boomer you ready?" Brittney asked greeting her wing man.

"As ready as I can be on such a short notice." He replied as the pair ran down the tunnels towards the hardened bunkers that stored their aircraft.

At the bunker the pair split up and ran to their individual planes. Brittney went up the ladder next her plane two rungs at a time and soon settled into the familiar seat of her F-26 Super Tomcat the _Black_ _Baroness_. She went through an abbreviated pre-flight as the doors of the bunker opened and what she saw shocked her, the missile silos out east of the base were launching their full complement of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles at unseen targets in the sky. As she taxied her plane out onto the runway she switch her radio to the general tactical channel and it was in chaos.

" _Fuck half the fleets gone!"_

" _Falcon leads been hit, Falcon flight at seventy..."_

" _Shit...They got through us the carriers been hit...all flights avoid her shes brewing up."_

" _Hawk flight here, they're sending drop ships to the surface...we can't get to them, they have to many fighters screening them."_

Brittney switched her radio back to the local channel, the confused shouts and desperate pleas for help from her fellow comrades and their short screams before their planes went up weren't helping her concentration at all. One thing was for sure, some serious shit was going down in orbit and it was heading her way.

"You on this channel Azrael?" A voiced asked over the radio

"Yeah Boomer I'm here. What's our squadron's strength at?" Brittney replied

"Besides you and me we have another eight pilots, Red and Blue flights are already in the air, Green and Yellow flights are on the runway getting ready to take off. Then its us as Gold flight last. Command also wants you to switch over to the command channel the other flights are already there."

"OK" came her tease replied as she internally cursed her luck.

'God Fuckin Dammit, I'm down fourteen fuckin planes and we're being goddamn invaded.' she swore mentally as she switch her radio to the command channel.

"Azrael reporting in." Brittney said as she taxied her craft into position behind yellow flight as Green flight raced down the runway.

"Good everyone's here I'm General Williams and I'm only going to say this once. I need y'all to defend the Capital as long as possible by taking out those drop ships, to buy my boys on the ground some time to set up a defense before these alien bastards get a foothold on the ground. Any questions?" the General said with a dead even tone.

The line was deadly quiet as everyone there processed this new information. Brittney felt like she had to tackle the elephant in the room.

"Sir did you say aliens?" she asked placing extra emphasis on the word aliens.

"Yes you heard me, Aliens. They attacked one of our exploratory fleets near Relay 314 about a two weeks ago, we've been secretly pulling resources out here for a defense in case a diplomatic solution couldn't be achieve. Looks like ET's spoiling for a fight. The plan is for y'all to expend all your ordnance and break atmosphere and hitch a ride back to Arcturus, if there are any ships left. They'll be leaving in fifteen minutes, that's how long I asked them to delay the invaders. If you can't make the deadline hit the deck and head north or south eject over the mountains, if there will be any resistance fighters it'll be the good ol' boys down there. Any other questions?"

No one answered his question, they were all set with a grim determination.

"Good luck and God speed." the General said turning off his radio so the enemy couldn't triangulate his position.

It was Brittney's turn to take off and she pushed the throttle up to War Emergency Power, the acceleration pushing her back into her seat. She eased the nose of the aircraft up and took off, heading south with afterburner on leaving two cones of blue behind her. Brittney swung in a wide loop to bring her plane in a northerly direction, cut the throttle down to seventy five percent, and plugged into the city's defense radar network and set a timer for how much time they had before the fleet left.

'Holy shit look at all those contacts.' she thought as she saw all of the red triangles appear in her HUD.

The other flights were approaching the inbound bogies from roughly all of the cardinal directions while the long range SAM missiles knocked a few inbound craft from the sky. The SPAAGs had to wait for the dropships to to get closer within effective range of their 40mm autocannons.

"Boomer start climbing and target the contacts in the tight clusters in the center. Radar is painting them as the dropships, they're substantially bigger that the others." Brittney said before she switched channels to the squadron channel. "All right, this is Gold lead, volley fire long missiles at painted targets on my mark. Two missiles per target, then independent fire. Make a break for it in eight minutes, head for orbit if you can and make it out of here, the brass will need our telemetry."

Brittney painted twenty of the dropships with her targeting laser and armed all of her Phoenix VII missiles.

"Mark." Brittney said and at her command forty Phoenix missiles lanced through the air towards the targets.

She felt a jolt as all four of her missiles dropped from her plane and the rocket motors ignited sending them though the air at mach seven. Twelve of the twenty targets were shot down, the remaining eight had deployed counter measures in time. The rest of the time spent closing with enemies was a white knuckle ride. Soon they were in range for the short range Bloodhound missiles and another six aircraft were knocked out. When they reached gun range, a massive dogfight broke out, Red, Blue, and Green flights wagon wheeled with alien fighters trying to protect the dropships.

Brittney let loose a burst of cannon fire destroying an alien fighter as she banked to dive after the dropships, Boomer at her four o'clock. They accelerated past mach two in their pursuit of the dropships and hit the deck above the city. The time for the SPAAGs to shine had come and they didn't disappoint, they filled the sky with trails of tracers, swatting some of the alien craft from the sky. She checked her radar and saw it was jammed, there was no way her radar would burn through the jamming.

A warbling tone filled her headset as an alien fighter got missile lock on her. Brittney flew though the skyscrapers of the Capital and used the buildings as cover. The missile hit a building and rained debris down on the street below. Boomer broke off to deal with the enemy fighters and Brittney continued to hunt troop transports killing another two with her cannon.

"All flights report in. It's almost time to go." Brittney said checking the timer she had set in the corner of her HUD. They had 4 minutes left before the fleet left. It would take almost all that time to escape the atmosphere.

"Gold one this is Yellow two. I'm sitting at ninety percent on my reactor, no way I'll break atmosphere, I'm going to head south to the mountains." Yellow two said.

"Where is the rest of the pilots?" Brittney asked.

"Dead? Bailed out? I don't know" Came the reply.

"God luck, Yellow two." Brittney said as Yellow 2 sped off to the south.

"I'm here. Had to deal with some unwanted guest. They met an untimely end after I pulled a split S at a low altitude." Boomer chuckled pulling up alongside Brittney.

"Sounds good partner. How is your reactor and shields doing?" she asked.

"My reactor is is sitting at seventy-nine percent and my shield are at four percent. Those guys hammered me hard. What are you sitting at?" Boomer asked.

"I have seventy five on my reactor and twenty percent shields, It'll be close but we need to make a break for it." she said looking at the burning city below her as the made a wide loop around the city.

"You lead the way boss."

Brittney and Boomer began climbing to escape to the remaining fleet, when Boomers plane exploded into a ball of fire.

"Boomer!" she screamed as the wreckage of his plane fell to the ground.

The two alien fighters responsible for her wingman's death settled in behind her and moved in for the kill. She thought that the end had come but by a stroke of luck a SPAAG gunner lit the two offending aircraft up with 40mm shells, killing one and causing the other to break off.

Brittney prayed to whatever higher power that may be for her second chance as she opened the throttle up, pushing the F-26 past the normal safety limits. It was a race against time as her reactor heated up. She broke though atmosphere with thirty seconds to spare and was shocked at the devastation in orbit. Ships were broke into pieces and slowly drifted about, the orbital stations were absolutely wrecked. Off in the distance she saw two frigates and a battle cruiser begin to make their retreat, outnumbered four to one. She pushed her F-26 even harder, desperately trying to make it to the fleeing Alliance ships, warning bells and lights going off showing irreparable damage to her craft.

"Battle cruiser Berlin this is Azrael, can you hold station? I'm coming in for a hot landing." Brittney said hailing the Alliance ships. Hoping her call sign would buy her some time. There was a brief pause before she got a response.

"We can hold station for twenty seconds. We're leaving with or without you then."

Brittney made the last leg of her trip slipping past the enemy ships and lined up for the hanger that ran parallel along the length of the ship. She cut her engines at the last second and slammed into the deck of the landing bay on the Berlin, the F-26 making several spins before coming to rest, nose pointing out the way she came in.

'Sorry Sis but I have to go. I'll be back to help as soon as I can. Take care of her Mason.' Brittney thought as she watched the airlock close, slowly blocking her view of Shanxi as it receded into the distance.

* * *

Tullius Vakarian shifted his weight as the dropship dropped a few feet from the turbulence. He nervously tapped his rifle, a Phaeston sniper, as the comms from the main attack filtered through the dimly lit troop bay of the dropship. The comm traffic was making him nervous, the primitives had inflicted over twenty-five hundred casualties before the main invasion for had even touched down. One of the enemy fighters had even manged to shoot down several transports by itself before fleeing atmosphere.

Reports on the primitives tracked anti aircraft units kept coming in, they were tearing the invasion force up in the air. The threat didn't end there, once on the ground some turians found themselves on the receiving end of the anti aircraft guns and were shredded. These dual purpose machines and the reports of the carnage they brought scared Tullius. Secretly he hoped there wouldn't be any of these machines at their LZ, a small town at the base of the southern mountain range on the central continent called Deercreek.

The dropship shuddered again as it moved lower into the atmosphere and circled a field with lights illuminating it. Tullius looked out of the porthole to see stands with primitives on them, their eyes tracking the dropships with curiosity and fear. The stands we mostly empty, most of the townsfolk had left to go home after the football game had ended. Only a few had stayed to loiter around til the early morning hours.

The dropships thudded onto the ground and Tullius followed his comrades out of the dropship and onto the turf of the alien planet. The turian commander linked his omni-tool up to the loud speaker mounted on one of the dropships, his omni-tool provided a direct translation to the primitive language, which they had made from data secured from the primitive ships they had destroyed fourteen cycles ago.

The Turian commander began to address the crowd.

"I am commandant Saren Arterius and I am in charge of this occupational zone. I have designated this area as a safe zone. All who wish to make peaceful transition may come here, where food, shelter, and medical supplies will be distributed per Citadel law. All who resist and do not surrender their weapons will be eliminated."

Murmurs of discontent spread throughout the primitives, increasing in intensity as Saren spoke. They began yelling at the Turian soldiers gathered before them, hurling what Tullius could only begin to guess were insults.

The crowd drew silent as a man in a dark blue uniform began to approach Saren, stopping briefly halfway, painfully aware of a majority of the Turian gazes were on him. Along with their weapons pointed in his general direction, ready to eliminate him should he prove to be a threat. The man steeled his resolve, walked up to Saren and began speaking with him. Tullius unable to hear the conversation, returned his attention to his job and flicked his gaze across the crowd.

Tullius spotted several other primitives dressed in a similar fashion as the one addressing Saren. He saw others in different clothing, with their hands in their jackets as they tapped on something. Tullius cursed the floodlights the primitives had erected because they had ruined his night vision. All he could see to the south was a hill overlooking the football field, with squat shapes on top of it. Tullius assumed they were homes. To his right in the north he could make out the tall rectangular shape of a building, that had square patches of light scattered along it's side. A sudden shot broke the silence of the cool night air.

Tullius whipped his head and rifle in the direction of the shot and saw the primitive that was talking to Saren lying on the ground dead with a gunshot wound to the head, Saren stood over him with a pistol in his hand. A tense standoff ensued between the two parties, an oppressive silence settled over the field. Tullius looked to for any primitives who might retaliate, when one of the ones dressed in a similar uniform as the dead one, raised his hand into the air and shot off a red flare.

A turian marine snapped a shot off at the man, striking him in the chest and killing him instantly. Tullius flinched at the snap of a high powered rifle round that flew overhead and struck the turian marine in the head, splattering his blood over his squad mates.

Chaos erupted over the next few seconds as turian marines fired into the crowd of primitives, some of which drew and returned fire with handguns. It was over as soon as it started, the echos of the gunfight rolled over the hills and the cries of the wounded filled the air.

Tullius sighed, this incident was sure to be cause enough for the Hastatim to be brought in for 'pacification work'. He held no fondness for them and it was common knowledge they hated snipers, no matter what side they were on. This hatred only increased after the massive amount of casualties inflicted on them by snipers while they were putting down the quarian refugee rebellion on Magna. The Hastatim blamed the turian sniper corps for these losses, stating that they were ineffective in their counter-sniper operations.

"Well my partner and I will somehow get blamed for this.." Tullius thought angrily as he scanned north and south for what he suspected to be an enemy sniper, who had caused the only local fatality so far.

Tullius was roused from his thoughts by the single shots coming from a turian squad, who had moved in and began finishing off the wounded primitives, not waiting for the Hastatim to arrive. They were mercy killings.

The shooting suddenly stopped as every turian's eyes flicked upwards, as red flares were shot into the air, to the north, south, and east. This was the only warning the turians got before a withering fire came in from the three cardinal directions. Three marines were instantly killed and several others wounded by rifle fire.

Tullius pressed his body against the nearest dropship to limit his exposure to the incoming fire. He began taking shots at the muzzle flashes on the hillside to the south, moving his crosshair from one to the next, to the next. He assumed his fire was effective as a significant amount of small arms fire shifted over to his position.

"Spirits damn those lights, they're spotlighting us." Tullius growled as he hunkered down next to the dropship.

Tullius raised his rifle and began to shoot out the floodlights. Several other marines saw what he was doing and followed his example. Soon the football field was engulfed in darkness. This coupled with gun runs from the gunships that circled overhead, the incoming fire from the hill and the apartment building behind him became more sporadic.

Tullius went to find his spotter Nyreen Kandros. He found her in the cover of the football stands, tending to a wounded turian soldier.

"Hey Nyreen." Tullius said. Nyreen stood and the wounded solider thanked her for her help.

"Damn Tullius it's good to see your ugly mug, I would have thought you would have run away by now." Nyreen joked as they walked back onto the football field.

"It was one time when we got jumped by a varren and I stumbled a bit."

"I know I just like teasing you." she said. "We're off to a great start aren't we?"

"Yeah it's going to be a long night..." Tullius' sentence was cut off by a SAM missile streaking into the air and swatting a gunship from the sky. They watched the wreckage for a few seconds wishing for the Spirits blessing for the crew.

"If you have time to just stand there, you got time for fighting." a squad leader said to them. "Wanna tag along and help us clear those houses on the hill?"

"Yes sir." Tullius said as he and Nyreen fell in with the squad. They were an independent team team and went where they thought they could be most useful.

They walked in the back of the column and passed underneath a score board the read

Home Team: Pit bulls 13 and Visitors: Grizzlies 21

They came under fire only once as they advanced up the hill to take it from the defenders and deny they further opportunities to harass the landing zone. A few well placed shots from Tullius' rifle ended the threat promptly, the enemy receded into the darkness.

At the top of the hill the squad moved to take the house on the highest point of the hill. Nyreen and Tullius were at the back of the breaching team, their sniper rifles being a hindrance in the close quarter battles. When the team went in the were immediately greeted by shouts and gunfire fire. The fight for the bottom floor ended in seconds as the humans on the bottom floor fled out the back door and into the night. Tullius followed the team in and ended up in the kitchen, three of the team were standing around a dead elderly female and walked in on the middle of their conversation.

"She didn't have a weapon." one of the soldiers muttered.

"It doesn't matter, she was with armed insurgents." the squad leader said.

"But we aren't like those bastards in the Hastatim." another said "I didn't know she was unarmed. I saw something move and..."

The soldier's sentence was cut off by a roaring blast from the front of the house and an acrid smoke filed the kitchen. Tullius stumbled into the hallway and saw the front of the house had been shredded, he stared in shock at the dismembered turians and the pools of blue blood on the floor.

"They were lucky, I guess. The blast probably killed them instantly." the squad leader said. He stared a Tullius with a thoughtful eye. "Is this is your first combat?"

Tullius nodded unable to say much more. It was his first combat since graduating the academy, he hoped he could continue to preform his job, but the sight before him really shook him to his core.

"Well I'd like to say it gets easier but you'll never forget things like this. They never tell how bad things can get in the academy and if this is any indication, things are only going to get worse."

Their conversation was interrupted by a turian coming down the stairs, who threw a primitive onto the floor at their feet.

"Spirits damn these primitives. They surrender only to toss a grenade at your feet." the soldier said. "What should we do with them sir?"

The female human looked up at them with terrified eyes as the turians regarded her. The commander studied her carefully before coming to a decision.

"Have it carry the dead out for pickup and then execute it. It didn't surrender and killed three of our troops, if we don't do it, the Hastatim will." the squad commander said.

Tullius stood guard with Nyreen and watched over the human as she was forced to carry the dead out front for the transport pickup. When the time came for the execution Tullius didn't watch, he turned his head away and stared off towards the football field. The commander pulled out his pistol and executed the human with a single shot to the head and unceremoniously dumped her body off to the side.

"Tullius, command wanted us to provide over watch for the attack towards the center of town. I told them we'll meet up with second platoon at the LZ and they will drop us off closer to our position." Nyreen said nudging Tullius.

Tullius nodded as they waited for the transport to arrive. Tullius helped load the dead into the APC and the squad leader thanked him for his help in assaulting the hill. Tullius was quiet as he and Nyreen rode in the APC with the dead to the LZ and he read on attack plan that was sent to them by command. At the LZ they helped unload the dead turians before they headed over to second platoon's APCs.

The marines of second platoon nodded in acknowledgment, they had already heard of the earlier fight for the house on the top of they hill and moved to make room for the two snipers in the APC.

"Here's the plan Nyreen, we're going to be dropped off about five blocks behind the advancing troops. There is a tall structure that should give us a good view of a majority of the town, so we should be able to effectively cover the assault from there." Tullius said.

Nyreen only grunted an acknowledgment to what Tullius, her eyes firmly focused on the dance of life and death unfolding above the open topped APC. Dropships and gunships dodging the occasional missile that lanced through the air.

The ride to the drop off point was quicker than he would have liked, he had only been here a short while and he was exhausted. The two snipers jumped from the APC and one of the turian soldiers wished them luck. They darted into an alley way and it became all the more apparent that they were in an active war zone. The high pitched whine of the turian's Phaestons and the sharp bark of the human weapons filled the air. Explosions also bellowed across the town, and they could have been caused by a myriad of things.

Checking their corners carefully, they proceeded down the intertwined alleys and made it to their destination without incident. They jogged across the street and entered a large office building that overlooked most of the town. Inside Tullius looked around for an elevator that would take them to the top floor, only to find that the primitives had sabotaged it. Agitated that nothing could ever be easy, he turned to see Nyreen signal that she had found the staircase.

Tullius nodded and followed her up the stairs with his pistol drawn, his sniper rifle almost useless at this close range. After several painfully tense moments they reached the top floor. The top floor was divided into several office spaces. They took care to clear the floor and before they set up shop Tullius found something. Several oblong brass objects were scattered about on the floor, in a room with an open window facing west, curious he picked them up.

He determined that they were from a human weapon and slipped them into a pouch on his hip. He looked through the scope of his rifle and out the open window. Tullius could see the football field where they were earlier, the dark forms of turians moving about LZ and the dropships as they swooped in with the rest of the battalion. These objects in his belt were what was left of the process that killed at least two of his comrades. Tullius heard feet shuffling around behind him and he whipped his rifle around, only to see Nyreen leaning against the doorway.

"Easy there, a bit jumpy are we?" she asked.

"They were here." Tullius said

"Who was here?" Nyreen asked her mandibles twitching in confusion.

"The primitive sniper who killed that first turian marine."

"That doesn't matter, we have a job to do and if we do it right it will save more lives. Come on, the room across the hall has a great firing position." Nyreen said leaving the room.

Tullius followed her across the hall to the room she was talking about. Nyreen sure was right about the room being a great firing position waist high walls that had windows lining them on the east and south side. Tullius dragged a desk and set it up next to the east wall and opened the window in front of him. He set up a firing position by using his unslung pack as a rifle rest. He then pulled up an office chair, it wasn't suited for his physiology but it was better than sitting. Nyreen had a similar line of thinking as she had a similar position set up a few windows down, except instead of a sniper rifle she had a pair of binoculars up, scanning the city below.

Tullius shouldered his rifle and he quickly found second platoon moving up the street to accomplish their objective of splitting the town in half by seizing the main crossroads. He scanned the buildings along the side of the road alongside and ahead of the convoy for signs of ambush, when several sparks of light in a second story window. Tullius moved his crosshair to the window and the sparks of light were replace by a steady flame, he steadied his breath and sent a round down range. The small flame temporarily became a ball of fire and a burning human fell out of the window. Tullius watched with morbid fascination as the human flailed about on the ground before going still as the turian soldiers stormed the building and cleared it of humans. The echoing sounds of the shootout reaching up to the snipers perch.

"It makes you wonder what else intelligence got wrong. They said not to expect much resistance from a non strategic location. The gunfire and explosions sink that ship." Nyreen said breaking the silence.

"Nyreen it isn't our job to worry about that. It's our job to follow orders." Tullius said concentrating before sending another round down range killing a human that was shadowing the convoy from the rooftops.

"Whatever you say chief."

Unbeknownst to the two turian snipers, their intelligence reports were right there wasn't a heavy military presence in Deercreek, the people they were fighting consisted of the local police and members of the local militia. The turians were just unlucky to have attacked on the eve of a big militia training exercise, when the regional national guard was in town with heavy weapons such as anti-air and tank missiles, rocket launchers, and hand grenades. The people they were fighting were mostly veterans of hundred years war and they were putting the weapons to good use making the invades pay for fucking with humanity.

 _Codex_

Phaeston sniper

A sniper rifle developed by the Turian hierarchy, to counter snipers employed by quarian insurgents in the quarian rebellions. Its development was fast tracked by the turian war machine during the final stages of the battle for Magna. It proved its self a reliable and efficient weapon, with its semi automatic action and three shots before it has to vent heat.

Type-23 APC/AFV

The Type-23 APC has been the workhorse of the turian military for decades, and has been developed into several different models. The Type-23A is the open topped troops transport variant, armed only with a defensive MG. The Type-23B is the infantry support variant with dual autocannons and a heavy MG mounted on a remote control turret on top. This hover vehicle has a very distinctive boxy shape with a sloped front at a forty-degree angle. It is rugged but when faced with heavy weapons its armor wilts and it becomes the coffin of twenty four brothers.

* * *

A/N A little shorter chapter than last, but I think this is a good length, I got to where I wanted to. I'm probably going to try to keep most future around this long.


	3. We were sleeping

Chapter 3 ...we where sleeping.

Mason woke up to the afternoon sunlight flooding his room. During the night he had ended up on his back, he blinked a few times to clear his vision. He looked over at his clock and saw it was three in the after noon.

'Fifteen hours. Damn that's the longest I've sleep in a year.' Mason thought as he tried to roll out of bed.

He looked down and saw what was keeping him in bed, Samantha's slender form snuggled into his side. Her left arm wrapped across his chest in a vice-like grip, and her head resting on her shoulder. Her soft breath brushing against Mason's neck. Mason shook her shoulder but she just mumbled a response.

"Just a few more minutes Mason."

Mason settled back into back into the bed and enjoyed the warmth that radiated from Samantha, a stark difference from the sub zero temperatures of New Oxford. He tried to clear his mind of all thoughts, but he still was worried about the future. He was sure the Feds wouldn't surrender that easily, he would've fought to the bitter end if the shoe was on the other foot, Mason knew others felt the same way too. Mason decided to push these thoughts from his mind and just laid in bed relaxing, sooner than he would have liked, someone entered the room.

"Hey. Look at the two lovebirds cuddling in bed. You sure do move fast Mason." Tyler said jokingly as he flipped the light switch on and moved to shake the pair awake. "You should come get some breakfast before it's all gone. You know how much Maria can eat."

"I'm awake dickhead." Samantha said swatting at Tyler's hand as she rolled over and got up on her knees.

Mason took this opportunity to get up and sit on the side of the bed, only to feel Samantha shimmy up behind him. Still sitting on her knees she wrapped her arms around his torso and set her head on his shoulder.

"So what's for breakfast?" Mason asked.

"Fried potatoes and ham." Tyler said.

"Sounds good Sam and I will be out in a moment."

"Hey Mason do you mind if I use your bathroom?" Samantha asked looking over his shoulder.

"Yeah sure I don't see why not."

"Thanks hon, I'll be out in a few minutes." Samantha said as she planted a kiss on Mason's cheek before she scurried off to his bathroom.

"Hon, using your bathroom. Fuck, did I miss the wedding or something?" Tyler joked.

Mason flipped him the bird and got off the bed to stretch out.

"You want to play a couple matches of Duels of Wizards?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah sure. What format do you want to play, standard or commander?" Mason asked.

"We'll probably play a little of both."

"Okay Tyler. I'll be out in a moment." Mason said as Tyler left the room.

Mason got dressed in his usual casual attire of a black t-shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots. His every day carry, a .45 1911, he slide into his holster. Mason reached into an a pouch on his assault pack and pulled two different sandwich bags with his decks in them. He walked into the living room and saw his younger brother Jason and his girlfriend Sasha laying on the futon. They would have a hell of a hangover when they woke up. Mason didn't envy them, from personal experience hangovers, he knew hangovers after getting blackout drunk were awful.

Mason walked into the kitchen and found himself a plate and heaped the fried potatoes and ham and a beer. He sat down at the kitchen table and began to chow down on his food.

"A little early for a beer isn't it?" a sleepy Maria asked shuffling in through the door and helping herself to the food before she joined the two brothers.

"It's never to early for a spot of beer lass." Mason said doing a terrible impersonation of an Irish accent. Which was kinda hard to do with his southern accent. "Plus we woke up at like three in the afternoon."

Everyone had a chuckle at his impression and the three chatted amicably over breakfast. Maria filled the two brothers in on what had happened while they were deployed. Mason felt a Samantha slide into the booth next to him she had gotten dressed in a tight fitting Punk Legends t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. She sat next to him and started filling them in on Shanxi elections, it was no surprise that the Liberty and Freedom Party had won the elections. They were very popular on the outback worlds like Shanxi and in the rural areas on the inner colonies. They held a seventy-five percent majority in all three elected offices of the Alliance. After they had finished breakfast, Mason and Tyler, told the girls several of the tamer stories from their deployment while they played cards.

Several hours later a very hungover Jason walked into the kitchen and scooped the cold potatoes and ham on a plate. Unable to help himself, Mason let loose a shrill whistle to aggravate his little brothers headache.

"So what did we learn little brother. Maybe don't go to parties and get blackout drunk, you're eighteen. You could've lost your scholarship last night, the cops raided the place a few minutes after we picked you up." Mason scolded.

Jason flipped him the bird, not wanting to deal with it right now, and shuffled towards the door before he turned around.

"What's going on between you two?" Jason asked pointing at Samantha who was snuggled against Mason's side.

"I'm dating your older brother." Samantha said, planting a kiss on Mason's cheek to make her point.

Jason just shrugged and walked into the living room, he didn't care enough to talk in his hungover state. The four friends resumed their conversation but were interrupted by Jason calling to them from the living room.

"Hey guys something's wrong with the TV, all of the channels are static."

"Well did you check all of the cables?" Mason asked.

"No."

"Well check the cables then." Mason said. "Maria can you go help him, if you don't I think he'll be there all day."

"No problem, I should probably check on Sasha anyways." Maria said as she slipped out of the u-shaped booth.

The two brothers resumed their card game, while Samantha occasionally asked questions about what had happened in the game. The sounds of Russian swearing filtered into the kitchen, Maria was pissed at something. She suddenly stop swearing before, she called the others to the living room.

"Guys I think you should see this."

The sense of urgency in her voice immediately set the two brothers on alert. They slide out of the booth as fast as they could and went to the living room as fast as they could, Samantha hot on their heels. On the TV was the Systems Alliance president giving a speech in front of the Systems Alliance flag, black to symbolize the void of space and a single star to symbolize unity.

" _...hearing this than you are in territory no longer controlled by the Systems Alliance. As of six hundred hours Alliance standard time we have received word that Shanxi has been attacked and occupied by a foreign power. We will continue broadcasting this message until the power runs out or the probes are destor..."_

The screen cut to static before the speech could be two eldest brothers immediately sprung into action.

"Maria go out and bring the truck in under the car port and check the radio, both AM/FM. Samantha check the internet. Jason, Sasha check the phones. Both landlines and cell. Tyler go get the portable military radio and check the CNR." Mason said storming off to his room.

Mason found his assault pack, and rifle case and duffel bag and brought each of them into the living room. He took his plate carrier out of his duffel bag and began fitting it's adjustments.

"Tyler status?" Mason asked as he finished adjusting his plate carrier.

"Everything is down Mason, AM/FM, both kinds of phones, internet, and the CNR. Whats the plan?" Tyler said giving the reports every one had given him.

"The plan is for me to go into town on the motorcycle and see what the fuck is going on. If I'm not back in two hours you'll take the truck load it up and take them up to the hideaway and survive. Fight back if you can."

"What the hell Mason. I'm not letting you go by yourself, if your going, I'm going." Samantha said. She was livid and stood right in front of Mason, glaring at him.

"What would the point of both of us going be. What if you got shot, how the hell would I fight and help you at the same time." Mason growled.

"You and Tyler went into the field, just the two of you all of the time, even though a standard team was six people." she countered.

"That was part of the risk of being soldiers, we had accepted that. Besides we were never more than 200 yards from our lines at any one time. If we needed help, it was always on call. We could have held out until help arrived. Now it's just us, if one of us gets wounded do we sacrifice the whole group to save one or do we sacrifice one to save many? Goddammit, it was different then all those people in New Oxford were just numbers, ranks, a faceless blur. They weren't people to me, but you're too goddamn important to me." Mason said

Samantha stood there and defiantly stared at him, she wasn't going to back down.

"I suppose there is no way I can convince you to stay." Mason asked

"Nope weather you like it or not you have yourself a new partner. Besides you helped train me, you took me hunting with you and Tyler, you took me to the range and taught me every thing about long distance shooting you know, and you taught me what you know about bushcraft."

"There's a big fuckin difference between killing a deer or shooting steel and killing a person. You do understand that." Mason said.

"I know that, but this is my home too. So I'm going to fight alongside you."

"Alright...you can go. Just do what I say when I say, when I say." Mason said with defeated tone.

"If she is going then so am I." Sasha said.

"So will we." Maria said, and Jason nodded his assent. "We may not be trained soldiers, but we are reservists for the local militia and turn out for a two weekends every three months. We know the basics."

Mason stood still again a little in shock from their conviction.

"I'm not even going to argue with you guys in the interest of time. So lets get you guys kitted up, because I assume you don't have have your militia gear with you." Mason said as he walked to the closet in the living room.

Mason began pulling things out of the closet and opened a trapdoor that revealed a set of stairs into the basement. Mason walked down the stairs, followed closely by the others.

"Holy shit Mason! I didn't know you had an a basement, let alone it being an armory." Samantha said gawking at all of the weapon racks.

Tyler, Spears, and Mason's personal armory was impressive, belts of fifty caliber ammo were draped from the rafters, and scores of weapons filled weapon racks. In the corner of the room sat two M2 Browning's on a custom duel mount for the back of Mason's truck. Along the left wall, Ak-221s, M16s, G3s, FALs, and many other rifles and machine guns. Under the stairs, spare parts sat in bins, sorted by model. The right wall was taken up by an armorers and reloading bench. Mason made all of his hand loads for Tyler's and his snipers here and maintained them here as well. On the far wall from the stairs, ammunition sat in ammo cans organized by caliber and two RPG-45s sat on a table in the center of the room with crates of rockets next to them.

"Where the hell did you get this?" Jason asked examining the M2 Browning's.

"Unexpended ordinance after militia training, the Guard units are shit at record keeping, their loss our gain. Well we also bought most of it, only thing we got for free was the launchers and the M2s." Tyler said as he brandished two plate carriers with a little over fifty pounds in steel armor plates and another two at his feet.

"Hurry up, we're burning daylight here. Pick a rifle so I know what ammo to bring." Mason said standing next to the ammo.

After he prompted them, the others four moved to select rifles from the rack. Samantha elected to take an Aks-221. The others took more traditional weapons, the Petrovsky sisters took the standard Ak-221 and Jason opted for a full sized M16. It didn't really matter which weapon they took as long as they didn't pick a battle rifle, the sixteen and two twenty-ones shared the same ammo and magazines. It wasn't really a problem until you moved into 7.62 NATO as each of the battle rifles used different magazines. That's why Tyler and Mason both used AR-10Ms so they could share mags.

The group went back up stairs and Mason set three thousand rounds of 5.56 on coffee table in the living room. Tyler went to his room to retrieve his gear while Mason checked over his. Mason sat down next to Samantha as all of his gear was in order, he hadn't had a chance to strip down his gear. He loaded up his plate carrier with ten mags and loaded the eleventh into his AR-10M and chambered a round. He took out his pistol and put it in his old M12 style hip holster, Finally he took out his W70 and loaded it with five rounds of 6.5 creedmoor, and topped off his shell holder on the buttstock with ten rounds. He was ready for war.

Mason looked around, satisfied his preparations were complete, and saw the others were also finished or nearly so.

"Alright let's get this done quick n' clean. Rely as much as possible on your militia training, it'll help." Mason said.

The group of six moved to leave but Samantha lagged behind, gabbed Mason's arm, leaving the two of them alone in the house. She turned him around and held his hands with both of her hands.

"Mason I'm scared. What if something hap..."

"Don't worry I'm scared whenever I head out too. I'll be there with you the whole time." Mason said as he pulled Samantha in for a hug.

"Sorry to intrude on such a touching moment, but we really need to get going." Tyler said poking his head in the open front door.

Mason nodded and checked over Samantha's gear, to make sure everything was in place. With one final tug on her plate carrier, he walked to the door holding hands with Samantha.

Samantha climbed up into the truck first and slid to the middle of the bench seat. Mason passed her his battle rifle and his W70 and three day assault pack to the trio in the back and Tyler repeated a similar process. The two brothers then climbed into the truck and the group began the twenty mile trip to town.

* * *

Tullius was awoken by a kick to his side, he looked up and saw Nyreen standing over him. He relaxed his grip on his pistol, when he recognized who it was.

"Let's go. Another team has just been flown in and command wants them to take our position. Command asked to see us as soon as possible at the primitive courthouse. The APC that brought the replacement team is waiting for us." Nyreen said handing him his rifle and helping him up.

"Did they say what he wanted?" Tullius asked as they walked pass they replacement team on the way down to the lobby.

"No they just said for us to meet them as soon as possible. The message came from the big man himself."

Tullius grunted in acknowledgment as they left the building and got into a waiting APC. The ride to the courthouse was quiet except for the whine of the hover engine. When they stopped in front of courthouse Tullius took note of the ornate pillars at the front of the building and the large clock just below the peak of the buildings eastern face. The interior of the courthouse was equally lavish, hardwood floors and red carpet, wooden paneling that came up to almost waist level.

A young private led them lead the pair though the hallways and to a set of double doors on the second floor.

"The General is waiting inside for you." the young soldier said before leaving the pair at the door.

The two snipers walked into the room and Commandant Arterius stood in the middle of the room in front of a primitive tied to a chair. The primitive's face had bruises and contusions covered his face, Saren had obviously been interrogating him. His older brother General Desolas Arterius stood off to the left side of the room studying the various books, trophy's, and plaques. The General turned to great them. The two snipers saluted and the General waved for them to be at ease and began pacing back and forth around the room.

"Ah, good your here. This 'human' here is the Mayor Gimble and he has informed me about some of it's residents and those likely to cause trouble for the occupational forces. That's where you come in, this town has somewhat of a living legend among them. A certain Mason Dixon Line otherwise known as the Black Dog. This man is a veteran soldier and a sniper, not so unlike yourself. Him and his brother are decorated soldiers, and possibly a third soldier that is a friend of theirs, live at a home they own north of town.

Their uncle the police chief was unfortunately killed in last nights melee, and their younger brother is missing and so are several of their family friends. So it's safe to assume that there are together, and I want you to eliminate or capture them. Though from what the kind Mayor has told me they probably won't surrender, so play it safe and kill them. They Mayor will fill you in on everything else he knows." Desolas said returning to the bookshelf and taking one off, his eyepiece providing an automatic translation as he read.

Tullius pulled up a chair and sighed, it was going to be another long day. Saren prodded the Mayor, who began to relate all he knew about this 'Black Dog' and his known associates, most of whom were missing.

* * *

Mason parked the truck next to the northern county water pump, in the cover of the tall tree. He scanned the hill with a pair of binoculars, before he passed them to Tyler.

"Okay, Tyler and I will crest the hill a little farther to the west and head down to O'Donovan's to scope out the town and see what the hell is up. See who the fuck it is that attacked our home." Mason said getting out of the truck, taking his gear from the truck. "Maria your up to drive. If you here gunfire close by wait forty seconds. If we're not at the top of the hill by then, run the hell away and to the house grab what you can and take the other three up to the mountains the long way."

Mason tried to close the door behind him but Samantha blocked it as she got out after him.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Mason growled trying to push her back into the truck.

"Remember I'm going with you and that means with you." Samantha said.

Mason was going to try and argue with her, when Tyler stopped him.

"Just fuckin let'er come, we're burning daylight and we have a job to do."

Mason sighed, his last chance to keep Samantha as safe as possible had passed and weather he liked it or not she was by his side to stay. Though he did have to admire her gumption, flashbacks of his first assault and the brutal carnage that came with it, filled his head as he walked to where Tyler was posted up on the side of the water pump.

"Well are you coming?" Mason asked over his shoulder.

Mason did one last gear check before he looked behind him to see Samantha check her gear and she tapped Mason on the shoulder when she was ready. Mason tapped Tyler on the shoulder and Tyler ran across the road while Mason covered the top of the hill, looking for targets to silhouette themselves. Samantha tapped him on the shoulder as she ran across, to signal she was the last one.

Mason was impressed by her discipline, for only attending the bare minimum of militia courses. As soon as she was across Mason sprinted after her, knowing that Tyler was covering him. They regrouped a few yards into the treeline, and Mason took point, as they moved up the hill to a point just below the crest of the hill. Mason dropped into a low crawl and moved up to a small break in the trees that gave a limited view of the town. He brought up his binoculars and observed the town. Someone had fought in the town, fires raged around the town, several came from the wrecks of crashed dropships. Other than occasional single shot that rang out across the town and the return fire that answered back tenfold, the town was deathly quite.

"Seems like someone is fighting back and by the looks of it we missed on hell of a fight." Tyler said as he crawled up next to Mason, taking the pair of offered binoculars.

"Yeah first our old home on Bronco and now Shanxi. How unlucky can we be." Mason said. "Both times we both got lucky and were in the right place, at the right time, to avoid the invasion. That's something I guess."

Mason crawled back down the hill, so he was just below the crest. And took a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and lit one. Mason was thinking about the next part of his plan, when Samantha came up and sat next to him.

"Can I have one?" she asked pointing to the pack in his hands.

Mason raised a brow at this, handed her a cigarette and she lit it off the end of his.

"You smoke?"

"Yeah bad habits picked up from training with the Militia. You know the old breed always smoking." Samantha said with a smile.

"Corrupting the youth, are we?" Tyler said as he joined the two and lit up a cigarette.

"Yeah something like that." Mason said chucking at the same joke their old CO in the Air-Cav would make about the greenhorns.

The three sat there and smoked, listening to the uneasy silence that had fallen over the town. It had been awhile since the last gunfight had echoed across the valley behind them.

"Do you think my grandpa will be okay?" Samantha asked

"Yeah he'll be alright. If anyone can make it through this, it would that tough old bastard." Mason said.

"I hope your right. When I see him next, I'll have to apologize, we haven't been on speaking teams lately."

"I'm pretty sure he'll be alright. When we find him you two will have a chance to make up." Mason said squeezing her shoulders to reassure her.

Mason really hoped he was right. He had talked to soldiers in the field and told them it would be alright, only to have them die hours later. It was a necessary fact of war, but Mason hated when he had to lie through his teeth to raise morale.

When he looked over at Samantha he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. The fear of losing someone. During the war it was expected that people would die, so you didn't get close to anyone and if someone did die, you mourned briefly and soldiered on because the war didn't stop because your friend died. This was different though, she wasn't a soldier, she was his close friend and more importantly she was his girlfriend. This is why they warned about being in a relationship with a fellow soldier, it clouded your judgement and made you vulnerable, although he had stumbled into it unknowingly.

"Mason what's the plan again." Tyler asked.

"We head down to O'Donovan's, and see what's up from there. We can only see a small sliver of town from here. We also avoid engagement if possible, this is a recon mission, not a goddamn fourth of July party." Mason said.

Mason snubbed the cigarette out on his boot, before he got up and slowly made his way down the slope towards the pub. He was followed by Tyler and Samantha, forming a loose delta. Right before he exited the treeline he lost his footing on a loose rock and tumbled down the last twenty yards to the bar. He slammed into the side of the bar, with a loud thud. A face appeared in the corner of his vision, he grabbed his pistol out of it's holster and pointed it at the figure.

"Mason it's me!" a feminine voice called out to him.

Mason blinked a few times and saw Samantha standing in front of him. He re-holstered his pistol and unslung his sniper rifle, to check to see if it was okay. The scope was unbroken and still tight to the rifle, he had gotten lucky this time.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah a little sore, but no worse for wear. Let's get inside, I don't like being out in the open more than I need be."

"Not that being sneaky matters much, with all that racket you made on the way down, half the town probably knows we're here." Tyler said jokingly as he handed Mason his battle rifle.

Tyler helped Mason up and they hoped over the railing and walked into the bar.

"What the fuck happened here?" Tyler asked.

"A fuckin bloodbath is what happened." Mason said

They pushed farther into the bar and stepped over semi dried puddles of blood. Empty shell casings clinked against each other as they were kicked about. When they emerged into the main room, Mason swept the room for hostiles but found none. As they walked towards the bar, Mason heard a muffled scream and a thud.

Mason turned and saw Samantha struggling to get away from a booth, Tyler had his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. After a few seconds Samantha calmed down, Tyler let go of her but she still scooted away from the booth. The booth in question had a pair of feet with dress shoes sticking out from underneath it. Mason flicked his tac-light on and the beam of light revealed a blood trail that led underneath the table. He crouched down and let out a surprised snort.

Underneath the table, a very dead Donny O'Donovan, laid with a shotgun in his hands and a spilled box of shells. Mason reached over and grabbed the shotgun and picked the shells up and put them in his jacket it pocket. Mason loaded the remaining shells into the tube.

"Poor bastard took several rounds to chest, there was no surviving that." Mason said handing the loaded shotgun to Tyler, along with the left over shells.

Mason stood and began to look side to side and kicked around a few shell casings on the floor. Tyler saw what Mason doing and looked around too and left a confused Samantha standing on the side.

"What are you guys doing?" Samantha asked.

"Donny had rifle like wounds on his chest but I don't see any rifle casings on the floor." Mason said

"All I see are pistol casings and a few shotgun hulls." Tyler said.

"It doesn't make any sense for the enemy to police their brass, but not the other brass." Mason said. "Tyler go upstairs to see if you can find anything useful, Samantha and I will go scope the town out with the rifle."

Tyler nodded and headed towards the kitchen and the stairs that lead towards the upstairs apartment. Mason led Samantha towards a booth to setup shop and it happened to be the same booth from last night and set his battle rifle on the table. They knelt on the short part of the u-shaped booth and Mason laid his W70 on back rest and brought up his eye up to the scope, while Samantha observed through binoculars. Mason scanned the near side of town.

"Mason there's a group of people across the street from the gas station." Samantha said. Mason moved his scope to where she had indicated.

There was a group of humanoid figures, with a human in the center. The human was called out to someone in the general store, Mason couldn't hear what she was saying as he was five-hundred yards away. The figures the woman was with were odd looking creatures. They were avian like with two fingers and a thumb on each hand and they were tall, the shortest one seemed to have at least six inches on Mason, who was at a respectable six two. These aliens were also have very good military discipline, they had every sector covered, though that wouldn't matter much when fighting a sniper some five hundred yards away.

"The fuck" Mason breathed

"What the hell are they?" Samantha asked.

"I don't know."

The aliens were obliviously hostile, if the firefight that had taken place in the bar was any indication, but he watched them with intense curiosity. His brain subconsciously scanned the aliens trying to figure out who is in charge, who had the support weapons. The group of aliens are divided into two groups, they seem to be from different units, one has a grey armor and the other had black armor with an insignia on the pauldron. The ones in black armor, seemed to be combat veterans, the way they stood exuded confidence. The ones in grey armor shifted uneasily, they were probably new recruits.

The human was waving her hands animatedly in the air, after a few moments ten humans came out of the convenience store they were hiding in, the three SWAT officers with weapons threw them on the ground, they all had their hands up. When the leader of the black unit said something to his subordinates, another one in black armor shoved the interpreter over next to the other prisoners and the leader executed the woman. The ones in the black armor moved in to massacre them, while the grey ones maintained security.

Something in Mason snapped, he knew he had said to avoid confrontation, but this was different, they were his community members and those police officers were his friends. They way the black ones moved, reminded him of the Federation action groups, who would operate by rounding up civilians and murder them. It was an ethnic cleansing, just like pictures out of the history books.

Mason flipped the safety off on his rifle and settles his crosshair on the leader's head. He squeezed the trigger and sent a round down range, that struck the enemy commander in throat. The aliens hands went up to the bloody mess that was his throat before he fell to the ground and thrashed around. Mason realized his mistake immediately as he cycled the bolt, he forgot to account for Shanxi's slightly higher gravity and his scope's zero was set for New Oxford. The enemies quickly dove for cover when they realized they were coming under fire, the grey ones sprung into action. Mason used Kentucky windage to compensate for his next shot, and another alien fell dead. His rifle barked a third time and the alien escaped death by a millisecond, the bullet passing through the spot it's head once occupied.

His third shot gave the aliens enough information to accurately guess his location and they peppered his location with semi accurate fire. What glass that was left in the windows was shattered as Mason crawled backwards off the booth to place some more cover between him and the aliens. He was reached up and grabbed his battle rifle off the table and was about to leave when he noticed Samantha wasn't next to him. Mason turned around and saw her in the booth frozen in place, he reached up and grabbed her belt and pulled her down next to him.

"Are you hit?" he asked urgently checking her over. The alien soldiers would be there sooner rather than later.

"No." she said shaking her head from side to side.

"Okay let's go they'll be onto of us before we know it."

Mason grabbed her wrist and led her into the kitchen so they could jump out a back window, they turned around a corner and came face to face with own of the aliens in grey armor. The alien leveled it's rifle at them, Mason struggled to raise his rifle. The alien had them dead to rights when it's head exploded into a spray of blue blood and greyish bits of flesh. The now semi-headless alien fell to the ground and revealed Tyler standing behind it with the shotgun shouldered.

"You owe me a beer for that save." Tyler said racking the slide.

"Tyler I'll buy you all the beer you can drink for a week." Mason said.

"I'm holding you to that." Tyler said as he busted out a window in the back and climbed out.

While Samantha climbed out of the window, Mason covered the door to the dining area, half expecting another alien to come through the door. When she was out of the window Mason followed and the trio sprinted up the hill for the safety of the treeline. Rounds impacted the ground around their feet and snapped overhead as they were briefly exposed and continued to come for a few seconds until they disappeared into the treeline. They ran as fast as there legs would carry them, Mason hoped they had listened to his order and left, their forty seconds were up. Though they probably are waiting even though he told them not to.

"Fuck it let's head to the road. We need to see if they are waiting. We should be able to see if the truck is still parked there from the hill." Mason shouted as he ran off to the right towards the road, the other two in tow.

When his feet hit asphalt Mason saw the fender of his truck sticking out from behind the water pump building. He took the rear position in the group as the three ran down the road to the pump shed. Soon shots began snapping around them as the aliens crested the ridge behind them.

Mason turned and dropped to one knee and began shooting at the aliens at the top of the hill in full auto. His goal was not to kill the aliens, it was to suppress them and it worked, some of the ones in grey armor flinched. In three seconds he had emptied his magazine.

The incoming fire picked up again as he fumbled with the reload. He brought his rifle back up to his shoulder, to return fire again when the top of the hill exploded in a fusillade of red tracers and a tremendous roar erupted behind him. Mason turned to see humvees broadside on to the road, the barrels their M50 Vulcan gatling guns still spinning. Mason grateful for the cover, sprinted the last seventy-five yards to the vehicles, he slipped between the two humvees and jumped into the bed of his, using the tire as a step ladder.

Sasha was already there in the back of the truck firing single shots up at the hill, as the aliens had returned. Mason slammed his fist on the roof of the truck to let them know he was in. Who ever was driving gunned the engine and Mason had to grab Sasha, so she didn't fall out.

The drive to the house was a short one, as the driver hauled ass, disregarding all posted speed limits, the humvees struggled to keep up, even with their upgraded engines. Mason stood up and grabbed the headlight bar across the top of the cab, when they reached the driveway to Mason's house.

The truck pulled up to the house and Mason jumped out and waited for the humvees to pull up, when the soldiers got out mason walked over to them.

"Who's in charge here?" he barked.

A man in a dirty uniform stepped forward he had obviously seen heavy combat recently.

"I am sir. LT. Nicholas Hershel." the man said.

"Alight I'm N3 Line, over there is N3 Boyd. The others are Samantha Wade, Jason Line, and Sasha and Maria Petrovsky. You can just call me Mason." Mason said. "Hershel, I think I've heard that name before are you from around here?"

"Yes sir, my grandfather owns a shop in town, and most of these troops with me are from Sterling state." Nicholas said. "Sir if I may ask do you have a plan?"

"Yep head up to the mountains, via the long route around town, and go to a camp we have built up there, about thirty miles from town. Get setup and start fighting back. It's going to be dusk soon, and we'll head out then, but in the meantime we'll need help stripping the house of supplies. I'd prefer to get this done quickly once they realize we didn't escape to the plains to the north, they'll have a pretty good idea of our location." Mason said.

"Yes sir." Nicholas said snapping a salute and motioning for several soldiers to go help and Tyler led them inside to get started.

"By the way don't salute me in the field, don't know when a sniper will want to take my fuckin head off." Mason said over his soldier.

Mason wanted to find Samantha to see if she was okay. He didn't have to look hard, the sounds of someone vomiting, led him behind his truck. Samantha was doubled over as she vomited violently, Mason walked over and placed a hand on her back and rubbed it reassuringly. He then pulled her hair back out of her face. After a few seconds she stopped throwing up and turned and hugged Mason tightly. She was shaking and sobbing into Mason's chest.

"Mason, that girl killed earlier was my friend, my classmate. I'm scared and don't know what to do." she sobbed into Mason's chest.

Mason rubbed her back and held her tight.

"It's hard I know, but you need to soldier on and worry about yourself now. My time in the army taught me one important thing and that is time doesn't stop for anyone. When we get some semblance of safety deep in the mountains, we can talk more then. For now help Maria and the other load the trucks up." Mason said. "Here take a cigarette, it'll take the edge off."

Mason took a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. He took a drag before passing it to Samantha.

"Hope you don't mind but I don't know when we'll get more of these things." Mason said.

Samantha didn't say anything as she leaned against Mason. The pair enjoyed a smoke together, as they leaned against the truck. After awhile they came out from behind the truck, Mason had his arm around Samantha's shoulder. The LT. noticed this but didn't say anything. They walked into the house and began to help move supplies with the others to the vehicles.

* * *

Tullius and Nyreen walked to a building across the square from the courthouse. The building used to be a local restaurant, but had been given to them to use as a base of operations as an independent unit. On the way to their building they passed a group of humans being escorted to the stockyards on the other side of the town out past the football field by the Hastatim. They had their three talons of Palaven emblem on their shoulders proudly displayed. They stopped and waited for the column to pass.

Tullius observed the humans as they passed, and he was amazed at the diversity of their clothing. Some wore blue jeans and jackets, others wore hoodies and blue jeans. Others still wore pants and jackets that had patterns that matched the local foliage. They may have been a motley crew, but their dignity in defeat and smart way of marching impressed Tullius.

"It's weird that the young are so adept at combat. I heard that these children gave third platoon hell when they tried to break out of the cauldron. They just threw themselves at third platoon until they got pinched between third and second platoons." Tullius said.

"Well any turian would fight back just as hard if it was Palaven." Nyreen said.

"Yeah you're right. Maybe it's just how much they look like asari that's throwing me off."

Tullius and Nyreen watch the humans as they passed. The humans eyes were filled with hate as they passed the two watching turians. When the last group of prisoners had passed, the two snipers walked into the building that was allotted to them. Tullius was about to sit down and go over the files that had been provided to him by Mayor Gimble, when his omni-tool beeped it was an order from Saren.

"What is it Tullius?" Nyreen asked.

"A sniper attacked an Hastatim unit and their marine detail a few minutes. Then led them into a trap with several heavy machine guns. Saren thinks it was our target. It follows his MO, the sniper fire three shots before retreating. Three casualties and multiple wounded. Saren wants us to track him down immediately before he escapes again."

"Any idea where they went?"

"If I recall correctly, this Mason has a house up north of the town. That'll be a good as any place for us to start looking." Tullius said as he lead the way out of the building and to a APC that was sent to pick them up.

* * *

Mason leaned against the side of his pickup truck and took small bites from his MRE, He had switched his clothes from his civilian clothes to his woodland BDUs he had in his house. He stared out into woods around his house as he and the others waited for it to get a little darker. They had finished loading up fifteen minutes beforehand, including the dual fifty cal mount for the Mason's truck. He had switched his clothes from his

Mason felt Samantha lean against his side. Samantha reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette. Mason lit it for her and she let it smolder for awhile before she took a drag. Mason was worried about her, she had hardly said a word since their earlier conversation. She had worked with a quiet determination and responded to someone talking to her only with grunts or nods. Mason would have to talk to her about it, but now wasn't the time, preferably when there wouldn't be much of an audience. Maybe just Tyler and Maria, people she was close to and could trust.

They continued to stand in silent vigil with the other troops, some were inside and lounged about, others were in the humvees waiting for the signal to go. Tyler, Nicholas, Jason and Sasha sat at a table on the front porch drinking tea and talked quietly. Maria was inside fixing a second batch of tea.

The normalcy of it worried Mason, he thought they should have been hit by now. It shouldn't have taken this long to find them, his house should have shown up on any aerial sweep, but they had to wait here as taking the roads would be tantamount to suicide if it was to bright out. Samantha did ease his worries a bit when she took a bite of his food, whenever he offered it. He alternated between feeding her and himself.

"Mason tea's ready." Maria called out from behind him.

While Mason was turned to face Maria to take the tea, he felt a sharp blow to the chest, like he had been hit by a sledgehammer. He lost his balance and fell to the ground. A hail of bullets filled the air as the soldiers sprung into action, and suppressed the wood line where the suspected sniper was. Mason took a second to catch his breath and Samantha dropped down and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Are you all right?" she asked tearfully as she hugged him.

"Yeah I'm fine." Mason said "Not to sound ungrateful for your concern but could you please but could let go my chest hurts like a bitch."

Samantha smiled a little as she let go of Mason, though her smile disappeared when she saw Mason's right arm.

"You're bleeding Mason" she said.

"It just grazed my arm. It'll be fine for now but I'll have to take of it later."

"Mason, Maria's been shot." Tyler said calmly.

Mason went over to Maria who was laying on the ground on her back. She had a gunshot wound in the stomach and Tyler was already doing what he could to treat her along with on of the National Guard corpsman. It wasn't anything they hadn't seen before, their years of training leading to a cold professionalism, though Tyler and Mason were hard pressed to operate in a such detached manner as she was their childhood friend. The others just stood in disbelief, Sasha sat holding Maria's hand.

"What do you want to do Mason?" Tyler asked.

"The only thing we can do, we take her up to the mountains with us. If we send someone to town with her the aliens will shoot them, if we leave her here she'll die, but if we take her to the mountains we might be able to treat her." Mason said as he let out a heavy sigh. "Let's go, if that sniper found us then others will be here soon. We should be safe enough to leave cover. Because with how close that sniper had to get to take the shot, I wouldn't want to chance another shot with them M50s covering the woods, if I were him."

Tyler and the corpsman loaded Maria into the Mason's truck and laid her across the bench seat, while everyone else piled into their vehicles. Mason grabbed Nicholas's arm.

"Tell your driver we're going to be moving fast and we ain't coming back if you get lost." Mason said.

"Loud and clear sir." Nicholas said.

Mason stood on the running board of his truck and Tyler manned the machine guns in the bed of the truck. Once the other drivers were ready, Mason got in the drivers seat and tore off into the brush before landing on a dirt trail, and barreled towards a back road near the far end of his property.

* * *

Tullius poked his head out of cover just in time to see the last of the human vehicles disappear into the forest, the loud roar of the lead vehicle's combustion engine fading rapidly.

"Fuck, I didn't get him." Tullius growled. "Nyreen you okay? Nyreen?"

Nyreen was on her back and her left hand clawed at her right shoulder. She had been struck by a bullet and was losing blood quickly. Tullius began dispersing anti-coagulate on the wound with one hand and signaled the APC on his com with the other.

They had set up far closer to the target than Tullius would have liked, but it was only place to get a clear field of fire and now they were paying they price for their overconfidence.

"Did we get him?" Nyreen asked through strained breaths.

"No, he turned at the last second. He went down but he escaped again." Tullius said staring at the space his target had occupied moments before.

Nyreen nodded before she stared up at the last light of the day filtering down through the leaves overhead.

* * *

They bounced along the back roads at a breakneck pace. The convoy had only stopped long enough for the drivers to put on their night vision gear.

Mason felt a pang of guilt every time they hit a bump, causing Maria to wince in pain. What was even worse was the knowledge that Maria was going to die, there was no getting around that. Mason and Tyler knew that, the corpsman knew and even Maria knew because she was a nurse. The had lied to keep the others from panicking and because they didn't have much of an other option. The only question Mason had now was how long she was going to suffer.

Mason pushed these thoughts from his mind as best as he could and focused on the task of getting them up to the mountain hideaway. The pain from his wound was helping keep him awake, and grounded in reality.

When Mason was several hundred yards from the main highway several miles south of town, an IR laser flashed across the road ahead of him. He jammed on the brakes and the truck skidded to a stop, the other vehicles tires squealed as they skidded to a stop too.

"What the fuck was that for? You almost dumped Maria from the seat." Sasha growled from the back seat.

"I saw an IR laser, there are friendlies out there." Mason said. Maria's renewed whimpering brought a fresh wave of guilt over Mason as he opened the door and looked out of the truck.

"Hey Tyler you still hanging on back there?" Mason asked through the open window

"Yeah I'm still here. You see the IR laser too?"

"Yeah I did, Flash them back with your laser three times."

Tyler flashed the treeline across the field from them on their left. After a few moments five figures emerged from the treeline and slowly made their way across the field to them. When they reached the truck, one of the jumped up onto the driver side running board. It was Carson Wade, Samantha's grandfather.

"Hey kid how you doing?" Carson asked patting Mason's arm.

"About as good as we can be considering how fucked things are." Mason said.

"Yeah we know how bad it is. We hit one of the alien patrols a few hours ago. They haven't been out this way since then, but that is probably going to change soon. Y'all heading up to the mountains?"

"Yup, up to the hideaway."

"So who do ya got with you?"

"The whole gang's here. Though we do have a problem, Maria's been shot." Mason said as he leaned back in the seat for Carson to see into the truck.

"Why are you taking her up to the mountains, she needs help."

"Carson I'm not sure if you've noticed but these guys aren't big on taking prisoners. They got their own fuckin einsatzgruppen, just like the fuckin Nazis, hell even the Federation. These aliens are here to commit a goddamn genocide. Sam and I watched them attempt to mow do a group of civilians, they got one before I killed their leader." Mason said

"Yeah my friend." Samantha added angrily.

Carson scrutinized them for a second before his eyes softened with a sort of sympathy.

"You got any vehicles?" Mason asked.

"Yeah back in the wood line we came out of."Carson said.

"Okay I'll pull the convoy up to the crossroads and I want your vehicles to take the second and fourth spots in the convoy."

Carson nodded and walked off with the other militia members as Mason pulled the truck forward. Once everyone was in place in the new convoy, Mason led them up to his and the Wade families hunting cabin. The trip up into the mountains passed without further incident.

Mason pulled his truck up in front of the small hunting cabin, it was more of a shack, just barely big enough to sleep six people. He got out of his truck and began to issue orders.

"Dismount and stretch your legs, but keep tight security. Samantha, Tyler, you're on me. We're going to strip the Cabin of every thing useful. Food, rifles, ammo, medical supplies, anything." Mason said "Carson head over to the shed and get the Mule. We'll bring it up to the hideaway with us."

The three friends stripped the cabin of everything useful and loaded it up into the backpacks at the cabin. They also took the sleeping bags, mattresses, and some spare clothes. Everything was loaded in record time, everyone wanted to be gone of the building as it would be found sooner than later.

Mason gave the order to mount up and the convoy made it's way up another dirt trail to the hideaway. Hindered by the darkness, a trip that shouldn't have taken very long, took over two hours. Finally Mason saw the turnoff, not another trail just a space between two trees barely wide enough to drive through. He drove down this pseudo path until he came to a cave. He drove into the cave and turned his headlights on and revealed the cave to be a long tunnel, the sides of the tunnel, to straight, to boxy to be a natural occurrence. After creeping down the tunnel for a few hundred yards, they entered a large room with an arched ceiling, large enough to easily turn all of the vehicles around so they were facing out.

"Mason what is this place?" Samantha asked.

"It's an old titanium mine. By the looks of it, when we found it, they abandoned it a few weeks after this part was dug. Every thing was still in crates, we never opened them, there was no need to. There is a whole place carved out for a barracks. They probably intended for miners to live up here in shifts. Before they abandoned it.

We even eventually got the geothermal generator workin again, damn thing was about sixty years old, and even now it only barely works.. It took Spears, Tyler, your grandfather, and I months to get it working again." Mason explained.

Mason pulled the truck in a wide U-turn, so it was facing the way it came in, the rest of the vehicles followed suit. He got out of cab and climbed into the bed of the truck.

"Attention! Everybody I need your attention." Mason called out in an authoritative voice. "Welcome to my humble abode. This is probably the safest place on the planet right now, cause most of us here are badass soldiers and we're armed to the proverbial teeth. So what I'm proposing is going to be dangerous as hell and I'll ask only for volunteers. I'm going to fight back, and kill these alien sons of bitches!"

The crowd of former soldiers in the militia and the national guard howled with approval at this.

"I'll take that as a yes then. There are problems though, there are about thirty five and no where enough food for us to last any significant amount of time up here, we also barely have enough ammo for a defensive action, let alone any significant offensive action. Now that we got that out in the open, I want five people watching the entrance about one hundred and fifty yards from here. When we get the field kitchen up and running we'll have your replacements bring you something. As of right now the rest of us need to unload the vics and move the supplies to the area underneath the foreman's office, which is now the tac-room." Mason said finishing his speech.

Several people volunteered to be on guard duty and Mason was greeted by Tyler.

"Good speech Mason." Tyler said.

Mason nodded and moved to unload his pickup truck and the others moved to unload their other vehicles.

* * *

It had been a real tough past day, but hey had finally made the mine a little more habitable. Mason leaned against a table in the foreman's office, with maps Kilgore county and the surrounding counties on it. Tyler, Nicholas, and Carson also surrounded the table. They were planning an attack on Deercreek to seize food, other supplies, and heavier weaponry. Samantha had sat in the corner of the room on a stool listening for awhile, but eventually she left. In a lull in the conversation, Carson studied Mason closely.

"Son you're asleep on your feet. You're gonna make a fatal mistake at this rate. Go find Sammy and get yourselves some sleep, she was noddin off in that chair before she left, she needs you right now." Carson said.

Mason reluctantly left the office and down the metal stairs. He passed Sasha and Maria on the cot she had been laid out on a ways from the fire in the center of the cavern. She was awake, so he stopped to talk to her.

"How are you doin' kid?" Mason asked.

"Dying." came the weak reply.

"You can't die yet. If you die who am I going to bill for the blood removal, for all blood on my back seat. At least wait to die after until after I get my truck cleaned." Mason joked.

"Don't make me laugh Mason. It hurts." she coughed while chuckling. "You know you're an ass, right?"

"Well that's not the first time I've heard that in the last two days and the answer is still the same as before. It's part of my charm." Mason said smiling for a second. Mason held her hand for a second before he left her alone with her sister, who he patted on the shoulder.

Mason found Samantha sitting on the tailgate of his truck. He sat next to her awhile and listened to the song one of the Poles was singing while another played the guitar, before she spoke up.

"Let me clean your wound now. Take your shirts off." she said tiredly.

Mason studied her for a second before he complied, first he took off his plate carrier, then he removed his BDU jacket. Finally he removed his telnyashka, a gift from Colonel Bella and the paratroopers he was assigned to on his first deployment. The garment made them honorary paratroopers in the minds of the men he had served with. It was now soaked red on the right side with his blood.

Samantha moved over to his side, she lifted his arm up and wasted no time cleaning the wound with a rag doused in alcohol. She had been prepared and had waited for him. Mason winced a little every time the rag made contact with his injury. She kept a firm grip on his arm and kept him in place. Mason relaxed as best he could, appreciative of her concern. He savored the tenderness in her touch.

* * *

 _Codex_

Ak-221

A direct descendant of the venerable AK-74 and one of two assault rifles. Fed from any ALLSTAN or Alliance standard magazine in 5.56x45mm caliber. Made in factory 221, hence it's name. Many other variants are based off this design, including a LMG and carbine.

M-16

Another direct descendant of the an old firearm. Modernized and fed from a ALLSTAN magazine.

M50 Vulcan

A quad barrel fifty caliber gatling gun with a fire rite of 1500 rounds a minute.

Systems Alliance

The governmental body of the descendants of colonists who were forcibly removed from their homes in the early 2040's during the peak of Earth's overpopulation crisis. Rebellions and political strife plagued the mid 2040's and reached a breaking point in the late 2040's when the Terran Federation ordered it's military to nuke the planet of Tigress to put down a rebellion. The military commanders, who were mostly colonists themselves, refused the order and deserted. When the news of the nuclear order and how far the Federation was willing to go to maintain control spread, desertions happened on a scale never seen before in history and the Systems Alliance was born.

Strong traditionalists, the citizens of the Systems Alliance celebrate the holidays and practice the traditions of their home countries on earth. Languages spoken are primarily English, Russian and Chinese, and followed by Japanese as they were spoken by the groups of the most heavily relocated peoples. Other languages were kept alive by enclaves of other relocated peoples, such as the heavy Polish population in the town of New Poland.

People who's ancestors were once enemies, now live together in a sort of peace, nationalism keeping. The driving goal of a democratic freedom, keeps them mostly united, even through their many disagreements.

Valkyrie Cigarettes

Not your typical cigarettes of old. They're not made with tobacco, they're made with the Valkyrie plant or miracle tobacco. When the fibers of the plant are burned and inhaled, a chemical relaxes the muscles. Almost odorless and no recorded negative health effects, it's the preferred smoke of Mason, Tyler, and a majority of smokers in the Alliance.

* * *

A/N Well that's the end of my Prewritten material for this story. I have a rough draft for the next chapter and several others all planned out, but the turn around time for each chapter will increase a lot. My method of writing is slow, I write long hand and then transcribe to a text document, but hey that's just how I am. I have one more chapter written for my other story, that I will transcribe and post, along with a rough draft for the third chapter. After I post that chapter I think I'll take a break and plan things out a bit further ahead for both stories, maybe catch up on my gaming and maybe throw down a few more paragraphs for my SAO story I have in the works.

Until next time ArcticWind out.


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